Maligaon, March 31: RailTel Corporation of India Ltd., a Miniratna PSU Under Ministry of Railways, has successfully turned 68 railways stations of Northeast Frontier Railways into free Wi-Fi Zone out of which 23 stations were completed in a record time of 1 month. The Wi-Fi has proved to be a boon for the passengers of NFR and in the month of February 2019, a total number of 614397 user logins and 278.88 TB aggregated data consumptions have been recorded in the stations of NF Railways.
Wi-Fi services to passengers are being provided under ‘RailWire’- the retail Broadband initiative of RailTel. Designed to offer users the best Internet experience, RailWire Wi-Fi will be available to any user who has a smartphone with working mobile connection for KYC considerations.
Pan India RailTel has successfully completed work of turning 1000 railways stations across the country into Free Wi-Fi zone. With a vision of turning Railway stations into a platform for Digital inclusion, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, a Mini Ratna CPSU under the Ministry of Railways, started providing high speed Wi-Fi service at Railway stations. The journey started in January 2016 from Mumbai Central station in Maharashtra being the first station to have the fast & free RailWire Wi-Fi and in a span of mere 2 years 3 months RailTel has completed 1000 stations. In the month of February 2019, the total number of unique users of station Wi-Fi across the country was 11577141 and aggregated data consumption was 9065.27 TB.
RailTel has provided high speed Wi-Fi at 414 A, A1 and C category stations, associating Google as the Technology partner for Radio Access, while using the RailTel backbone for broadband connectivity. RailTel has already completed work of providing Wi-Fi 200 stations with support of Universal Service Obligatory Fund of GoI and in 386 stations with own/other funding.
RailTel envisages expanding the network in more stations in near future. Recently RailTel has roped in Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at remaining 4791 B, C, D and E category stations across country. These stations will have free high speed RailWire Wi-Fi by RailTel by the end of this year. Once completed all Railway stations (except the halt stations) of Indian Railways will have fast & free RailWire Wi-Fi.
These are very small stations catering to mainly rural/low population density areas. There is a visible digital divide between Rural and Urban India and rural populations are deprived of state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure availability as private operators often find it hard due to CAPEX involved.
Easy and low-cost availability of Smart phones in the market provides the rural population with low cost access device but lack of infrastructure becomes a hindrance for them to access high speed internet. With high speed Wi-Fi services available at Railway stations of these rural areas now Railway stations will be turned into hub for digital growth for rural India.
Talking about the Wi-Fi at the stations of NF Railway, Shri Sanjive Roy, GM/NFR, said “Northeast Frontier Railways is an important zone of Indian Railways. Wi-Fi at 68 stations of this zone is proving to be really helpful for the passengers. The response to the Wi-Fi at Railway stations of N F Railways has been phenomenal. With number of stations increasing with each passing day the Wi-Fi facility is reaching more and more people.’
Sharing the details about the RailWire Wi-Fi at stations, Shri Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel said ‘We have successfully completed work of providing high speed Wi-Fi at 1000 stations across India. Right now, the pace of execution is very high and we will cross the milestone of covering 1500 stations pan India in few days. Also, we are committed to provide Wi-Fi at all stations of Indian Railways (except the halt stations) and the work is expected to be completed soon.’
To use the Wi-Fi the user has to switch on the Wi-Fi mode in the smartphone and select the RailWire Wi-Fi network. After the RailWire homepage network automatically appears on the smartphone, the user has to enter his or her mobile number on this homepage. The user will get one-time password (OTP) in form of SMS in the message box which has to be entered in the home page of RailWire. After entering OTP Users will be able to access high speed internet & can start internet browsing.
