NTA (Nepal Telecommunication Authority) now regularly publishes drive test report of the mobile networks of three operators. According to NTA drive test in Lalitpur, Smart Telecom is found to have the fastest mobile internet. Similarly, other parameters suggest all the service providers do not meet the NTA threshold for call setup time and success rate.
The latest drive test report published is for the test performed in the month of Falgun to Baishak, 2076 (March and April 2019). The route for the drive test in Lalitpur is inside Lalitpur ring road and outside the ring road. The outside ring road routes are from Dhobighat, Nakhkhu, Bhainsepati, Lele, Thecho, Nakhipot, Khumaltar, Dhapakhel, Harisiddhi, Imadol, Mahalakshmi, Tikathali, etc.
NTA started to publish the drive test report from last year. This is the third drive test report from NTA which has been performed in different areas so far.
Voice call test
For the voice call through 2G, 3G, they made calls through the test phone while driving in the route from all of the mobile network. They put the phone in automatic mode so that the phone can be in any of the network modes like 2G, 3G, and 4G.
Call setup time and success rate
According to NTA threshold, the call setup time should be less than 5 seconds while the call setup success rate should be 99% or more. But with the drive test in the areas, all of the mobile networks (Ntc, Ncell, and Smart) could not meet both of the criteria.
Here is the value of the call connection time and call setup success rate in those places.
| Service provider | Call connection time (seconds) | Cell setup success rate (%) |
| Nepal Telecom | 11.53 | 92.86 |
| Ncell | 7.68 | 94.74 |
| Smart Telecom | 12.01 | 87.62 |
Call drop rate
For the call drop rate, which is the percentage of call drops due to the problem in the network to that of the total successful calls. As people find it irritating to have frequent call drops, NTA has set a threshold for call drop rate to be 2 % or less. Nepal Telecom and Ncell meet this criterion but Smart Telecom’s call drop exceeds the threshold. Further, the test could not find any call drop from Ncell network in that area.
Here is the stat of the call drop rate in that drive route.
| Service provider | Call drop rate (%) |
| Nepal Telecom | 1.54 |
| Ncell | 0 |
| Smart Telecom | 3.26 |
Data test
For the data test, NTA did the browsing test for some websites, ping tests and throughput test. The results are to show the stability of the data service, the experience of browsing and the download/upload speeds.
From the ping test, Ncell network took the highest time for the round trip while Ntc took the lowest. The ping success rate for all of the network is more or less the same.
Here is the summary of ping tests and browsing tests in the Lalitpur area
| Service provider | Ping (milliseconds) | Ping success rate (%) | HTTP Browsing Display Delay (Seconds) | HTTP Browsing Display Success Rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nepal Telecom | 137.75 | 98.6 | 17.93 | 91.06 |
| Ncell | 199.19 | 98.65 | 18.12 | 93.85 |
| Smart Telecom | 168.77 | 98.98 | 17.99 | 88.81 |
Regarding the download and upload speed, Smart Telecom is found to have the highest speed in the area. Earlier NTA test in Bhaktapur showed the highest download speed of 74.39 Mbps but that time also Smart Telecom’s speed was highest for upload in Bhaktapur and also for both in Pokhara.
Here is the summary of all the upload and download data speed test in the Lalitpur area.
| Service provider | Download Throughput (Average), Mbps | Download Throughput (Peak), Mbps | Upload Throughput (Average), Mbps | Upload Throughput (Peak), Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nepal Telecom | 5.45 | 19.19 | 3.54 | 13.56 |
| Ncell | 9.08 | 58.33 | 7.24 | 18.91 |
| Smart Telecom | 11.63 | 63.43 | 8.37 | 18.88 |
The latest data speed test from the drive test in Lalitpur route shows the highest downlink and uplink speed with Smart Telecom. The speed in both cases is from its 4G network.
- Smart Telecom’s peak download speed: 63.43 Mbps
- Smart Telecom’s peak upload speed: 18.88 Mbps
Conclusion
With the NTA drive test report, it seems all of the service providers have to focus more on their voice service set up time and success rate. While the call drop rate was found satisfactory with Nepal Telecom and Ncell. As Smart Telecom had added more 4G sites and used higher bandwidth for lesser users, they are found to have the fastest internet speed there.
