TRAI’s Network Anubhav maps internet speeds by area and moves DND complaints online

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday, 4 November, opened Network Anubhav, a public map-based dashboard that shows how fast mobile and fixed broadband connections run in different places. The portal also brings the Do Not Disturb (DND) service for unwanted commercial calls and messages to the web.

Its numbers come from two places: speed and call tests that people run on TRAI’s MySpeed and MyCall apps, and drive tests the regulator carries out on its own. Results can be split between cellular and fixed broadband, then by operator and by network technology, with download and upload speeds plotted on a map that users can zoom into. Filters, tables and downloadable reports sit alongside the map.

How to read the speeds

Each area gets percentile figures rather than a single average. P50 is the median: half the tests there came in at or above it. For mobile broadband the portal adds P80, the speed that 80% of tests matched or beat, and for fixed lines P90. TRAI cautioned that tests run by users are not a full assessment of network quality under a standard method, but said they show people what others in the same place have experienced.

Spam complaints move online

Through the DND section, subscribers can record their preferences for commercial communication, complain about unsolicited calls and texts, follow each complaint, and see complaint totals for every operator. Telecom companies get a separate secure view of the test data on call quality, network coverage and internet speed, tagged with location, date and time, to find weak spots in their networks.

TRAI chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti said the platform would make tests by consumers and by the regulator more transparent. TRAI has also made a MySpeed software kit available that qualifying outside apps can build in, which would feed more readings into the map, and has asked users to keep testing through its two apps.