Shillong, Nov 11: Reliance Jio and Airtel are two of the better performing mobile phone network providers in East Khasi Hills, according to an assessment by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), details of which were released today.
The state-owned BSNL, however, scored poorly, while Vodafone Idea was third out of the four companies.
TRAI released its ‘Independent Drive Test’ (IDT) findings for the North East covering extensive city routes of Shillong city and East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya in September 2025. The drive tests, conducted under the supervision of the TRAI Regional Office, Kolkata, were designed to capture real-world mobile network performance across diverse usage environments – urban zones, institutional hotspots, rural residential areas, tourist spots, etc.
TRAI teams conducted tests across Shillong and the wider East Khasi Hills between September 1 and 5, covering 269.4km of city drive test, 9 hotspot locations and 1.6km of walk test. Technologies evaluated included 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G, reflecting the service experience of users across multiple handset capabilities. The findings of the IDT have already been intimated to all the companies concerned.
Reliance Jio scored best according to ‘call setup success rate’ with 99.12 per cent, while Airtel was second at 96.34 per cent, Vodafone Idea third with 80.20 per cent and BSNL last with 73.63 per cent.
BSNL also had the worst ‘drop call rate’ at 12.19 per cent, behind Vodafone Idea (3.49 per cent), Airtel (2.46 per cent) and Reliance Jio (0.89 per cent).
5G data services delivered a maximum average download speed of 157.15 Mbps and maximum average upload speed of 10.89 Mbps in city drive.
Although the results mentioned Shillong and East Khasi Hills, the TRAI teams also appeared to have covered areas of Ri-Bhoi, such as Jorabat, Byrnihat, Umroi, Umtrew, Bhoirymbong and Umiam. Places actually in East Khasi Hills that were assessed included Kyrdemkhla, Mawkdok, Sohra and Mawsynram.
TRAI also evaluated real-world conditions at the Administrative Block of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, Elephant Falls, IIM Shillong, ISBT, Mawphlang Sacred Forest, Mawsmai Cave, Police Bazaar, Seven Sisters Waterfall, Umiam Lake through static testing and at Shillong Civil Hospital, Meghalaya Legislative Assembly and Ward’s Lake through walk test.
