Yesterday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a comprehensive Independent Drive Test (IDT) report for four cities—New Delhi (Delhi LSA), Jaipur (Rajasthan LSA), Ahmednagar (Maharashtra LSA), and Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh LSA)—conducted during September to October 2024. The objective of this drive test was to assess the quality of service (QoS) provided by cellular mobile operators for both voice and data services.
In this analysis, I will evaluate the report from a perspective different from TRAI’s approach. Specifically, I will focus on the extent of network coverage that the four key telecom operators have achieved in these cities across various technologies. This will be assessed based on the time spent by handsets on each network during the drive test, where devices were set to auto-selection mode. A stronger network affinity indicates greater dominance, offering critical insights into how much each operator has invested in deploying different technologies within these markets. This analysis will also map their network performance against the spectrum resources allocated to them.
