New Delhi, 02 June (H.S.): Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has found Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel to be the best-performing telecom operators in its mobile network quality assessment conducted in Palampur and adjoining areas of Himachal Pradesh, as well as along the Chandigarh–Palampur highway corridor. In the Palampur region, Reliance Jio recorded an average download speed of 194.17 Mbps, while Airtel achieved 155.87 Mbps.

TRAI on Tuesday released the report of its mobile network quality assessment carried out in March. The exercise evaluated key service quality parameters, including network coverage, call drop rates, call setup success rates, download and upload speeds, across Palampur town, nearby areas, and the highway route connecting Chandigarh and Palampur.

According to TRAI, testing conducted in Palampur and surrounding regions revealed that the number of poor-signal samples recorded stood at 918 for Airtel, 15,526 for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, 1,358 for Reliance Jio, and 4,287 for Vodafone Idea. BSNL experienced the highest number of coverage-related issues during the assessment.

In terms of call drops, Airtel registered two dropped calls out of 277 successful calls, while BSNL recorded 12 call drops out of 266 successful calls. Reliance Jio reported only one call drop out of 279 successful calls, whereas Vodafone Idea recorded nine dropped calls out of 271 successful calls.

For data download speeds, Reliance Jio emerged as the leader with an average speed of 194.17 Mbps. Airtel followed with an average download speed of 155.87 Mbps. Vodafone Idea recorded a download speed of 12.66 Mbps, while BSNL registered 6.95 Mbps.

Reliance Jio also topped the upload speed category with an average speed of 16.73 Mbps. Airtel closely followed at 16.40 Mbps. Vodafone Idea recorded an average upload speed of 4 Mbps, while BSNL achieved 2.52 Mbps.

The Chandigarh–Palampur highway assessment also showed superior performance by Reliance Jio and Airtel. On this route, Jio recorded an average download speed of 199.45 Mbps, while Airtel achieved 145.87 Mbps. BSNL and Vodafone Idea recorded download speeds of 10.40 Mbps and 11.56 Mbps, respectively.

In terms of call drops along the highway corridor, Airtel and Reliance Jio recorded only two and one dropped calls respectively. In contrast, BSNL reported 14 call drops, while Vodafone Idea recorded 12 such incidents.

TRAI stated that the assessment was conducted between March 10 and 13, 2026, across Palampur town and nearby locations including Maranda, Bhawarna, Panchrukhi, Baijnath, Nagri, and Gopalpur, as well as along the Chandigarh–Palampur highway through Bilaspur, Ghumarwin, Hamirpur, and Bhawarna. Network quality was also evaluated at prominent locations such as Baijnath Temple, Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University, Palampur Bus Stand, and Palampur Market.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar