The Delhi-Kolkata rail route has the best mobile network coverage, and Airtel has the widest coverage, according to a study.

Among the major connection between the metros, Delhi – Howrah (Kolkata) route scores the highest at 88 per cent network coverage through the route. Bengaluru-Chennai route has the second highest score with 78 per cent coverage.

Study over 12 months

According to a study conducted by travel portal RailYatri, Airtel scores the best network coverage with 58 per cent, followed by Vodafone (42 per cent) and BSNL (34 per cent).

The study was conducted over the last 12 months by RailYatri through its app, which allows users to quickly find out the speed of Wi-Fi. There are 13.50 million users of this app across the country, the report said.

It, however, did not include speed-test of Reliance Jio network as it was launched in the latter part of 2016.

“An Indian, on an average, uses four-five apps during long train journeys. Internet connectivity along the rail routes has thus become important to ensure pleasant experience for today’s travellers.

Downloading a movie

With the network coverage feature, passengers now know what to expect along their train route. Armed with this information, they can make their calls or take decisions like downloading a movie or book for later viewing/reading ,” Manish Rathi, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of RailYatri.in, said.

How the new version works

The new version of the app that was recently launched displays the mobile network coverage for any train.

So, travellers can check and compare the connectivity across different routes, he said.

To check the network coverage, the userhas to open the timetable of any train on the app and a link on the bottom of the screen will map the route along with the coverage details.

“While stations are getting high-speed Wi-Fi connection, the RailYatri data showed fluctuating mobile connectivity on long train routes.

“While at some routes the network connectivity ranges as high as 70-88 per cent, at other places, they could go as low as 20 per cent, depending on the network providers available on that route,” Rathi said.

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