Reliance Jio recorded significantly more call-silence instances than Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) during a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) drive test in New Delhi and Central Delhi in August 2026. Vi, despite its financial and operational challenges, performed better than Jio on some voice-quality and network coverage parameters.
According to TRAI's independent drive test report, Jio recorded 46 instances of call silence lasting more than three seconds across 835 established calls. In comparison, Airtel recorded three such instances across 844 calls, while Vi reported 11 across 845 calls.
Call silence occurs when a call remains connected but the user cannot hear sound for a period of time. Unlike a dropped call, the connection is not disconnected.
Jio, which is all set to launch its mega IPO, also recorded 1,610 samples with poor signal strength out of 95,084 samples collected during the drive test. Vi performed better, with 983 samples showing poor signal strength out of 97,747 samples. Airtel recorded 1,594 such samples out of 97,412.
Poor signal strength means a phone receives a weak mobile network signal. This can affect call clarity, data speeds and the reliability of the connection.
However, Jio performed better than Vi on download speeds and recorded the highest average download throughput among the operators tested. Its average download speed stood at 287.91 Mbps, compared with 156.52 Mbps for Airtel and 39.57 Mbps for Vi. Jio's upload speed was 23.31 Mbps, marginally lower than Airtel's 23.94 Mbps and Vi's 25.41 Mbps.
On dropped calls, Jio recorded two drops out of 872 successfully established calls. Vi reported one drop out of 877 calls, while Airtel reported no dropped calls across 868 established calls. A dropped call occurs when a call disconnects unexpectedly after the connection has been established, forcing users to call again. The test also found that Jio had 18 samples with no coverage, compared with none for Airtel and Vi. MTNL recorded 1,896 such samples, along with significantly more instances of poor signal strength.
TRAI conducted the drive test between August 10 and 14, covering 322.9 km of city routes, 11 hotspot locations and a 2.2-km walk-test route. The areas included Connaught Place, Khan Market, India Gate, Lajpat Nagar, Hauz Khas, Kashmere Gate and Sarojini Nagar. The walk test covered Bhagirath Palace's electronics market.
The regulator said the exercise assessed real-time mobile network performance across voice and data services.
