New Canaan works to understand mobile coverage complexities

 

By Bryan Darr, Vice President of Government Affairs at Ookla

Note: This blog was produced under WIA’s Innovation and Technology Council (ITC). The ITC is the forum for forecasting the future of the wireless industry. Participants explore developments in the wider wireless industry, from 5G network monetization trends and streamlining infrastructure deployment to future spectrum needs and cell site power issues. The group is publishing a series of thought-leadership pieces throughout 2025. These views are not a WIA endorsement of a particular company, product, policy or technology.

To better understand the complexities and intricacies of the mobile coverage in New Canaan, Connecticut, the town engaged Ookla®, a global leader in connectivity intelligence, in June 2024 to get an independent evaluation of mobile coverage and quality across all of the town’s primary and secondary roads. The town’s Utilities Commission kicked off a drive-test project to assess mobile network coverage as well as voice and data call experience.

Performing drive and speed tests can help operators, municipalities and agencies identify underserved areas that could benefit from increased coverage or connectivity performance, prioritize where to distribute funding to enhance connectivity, bridge the digital divide, and monitor funded areas to see improvements in performance and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. In addition, testing can gather information to support IoT use cases and build smarter cities.

New Canaan is a town in Fairfield County with a population of about 21,000. The town is about an hour from New York City by train and is considered part of Connecticut’s Gold Coast. New Canaan’s Utilities Commission is tasked with understanding and prioritizing key resident and business utility needs, investigating and becoming knowledgeable about issues and priorities, and communicating recommendations to the public and town bodies.

Ookla employed its drive test methodology to complete the assessment, capturing empirical network performance data from four operators. Using a systematic drive test on a pre-agreed route covering approximately 125 miles, Ookla gathered data about network coverage, signal strength, voice call success rate and data throughput. The test spanned both state and town roads and used eight devices over a 16-hour period.

The voice test included a scenario configuration for mobile-originated voice calls lasting one minute, including 10 seconds of idle time between each call. This configuration allows the device to select the best available signal and provides 28 seconds to ensure a successful voice call setup within a specified time, which simulates the customer experience.

The data test also lasted a maximum of one minute during which the device performed a Ping test to select the closest available server capturing Jitter and Latency and then performed both a download and an upload test within a maximum time of 25 seconds. An idle time of 10 seconds was added between data test events to allow the strongest available signal to be selected.

The drive test found call samples that fell into the average to weak or weaker categories below -90 dBm. The test also recorded where there was low data speed performance with setup failures of between 10 and 30 percent as well as dropped call rates of between three and seven percent.  Improved coverage could be achieved by identifying coverage gaps and optimizing infrastructure, the study said.

Devices connected to LTE and NR 5G – both Non-Standalone and Standalone – networks along the drive route. Ookla conducted roughly 540 tests taken on Speedtest® to measure internet speeds with each operator device.  The results of the speed test were submitted to the Town of New Canaan officials. According to New Canaan officials, the Utilities Commission will be discussing the study at upcoming public commission meetings and will work with the carriers on a variety of available cell service technologies and infrastructure.