What is drive testing and why operators need it

Measuring the Real Network

Drive testing captures real-world RF measurements while a trained engineer travels through a network's coverage area in a vehicle equipped with specialized hardware and software. Thousands of data points per second — signal strength, signal quality, throughput, latency, handovers, and call drops — are logged with GPS coordinates to create a precise picture of network performance. Unlike propagation models that predict behavior from terrain and clutter data, drive testing reveals what actually happens in the field. Construction cranes, new buildings, seasonal foliage, rogue transmitters,…