Google, Railtel Launch Free Wi-Fi Service at 9 More Railway Stations

The digitalization of India has started with a bang. Google in collaboration with RailTel, the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country, has announced on Friday its free Wi-Fi service across 9 more railway stations in India. 

This free Wi-Fi service took off in January this year at Mumbai Central Railway Station, which makes 10 in total. These 9 stations are: Raipur, Bhubaneswar, Vijayawada, Bhopal, Ernakulum Jn (Kochi), Kacheguda (Hyderabad), Pune, Ranchi and Vishakhapatnam. It is estimated that this free high broadband service will profit 1.5 million passengers and visitors. 

Where the formal launch in Bhubaneswar is scheduled for Sunday, Jaipur, Ujjain and Allahabad will go live next week. Google, Railtel Launch Free WiFi Service at 9 More Railway Stations.

Google India Head of Access Project, Gulzar Azad, told PTI, “The network is now live in 10 key stations across the country and will enable about 1.5 million people to access high speed internet service. We are scaling up our efforts to roll out the network quickly to cover some of smaller stations where connectivity is much more limited.” 

As internet adoption grows in India, easy and affordable access to high speed network is the real need of the hour, he stressed. 

The services will be formally inaugurated by railway minister Suresh Prabhu soon, added Azad. Users in Raipur, Bhubaneswar, Vijayawada, Bhopal, Ernakulum Jn (Kochi), Kacheguda (Hyderabad), Pune, Ranchi and Vishakhapatnam will be able to access the network using their smartphones for free. 

Commenting on the launch, Chairman and Managing Director of RailTel Shri R.K. Bahuguna said, “As outlined by the Hon’ble minister Shri Suresh Prabhu- modernizing and improving the amenities available to passengers of Indian Railways is big part of our focus. And we are very proud to say that Indian Railways has taken the lead to offer the best Wi-Fi network experience available to passengers today in the country. And while the services will be free for reasonable amount of time, our long-term goal is to make this project self-sustainable to allow for expansion to more stations and places, with RailTel and other partners, in the future.” 

According to Azad, about one lakh people at the Mumbai Central station use the service per week. Google and RailTel have collaborated to make high speed broadband available across 100 stations to 10 million Indians a day by the end of the year. 

The project will eventually be rolled out to cover 400 Railway Stations across India. “This project will be the largest publicly accessible high-speed Wi-Fi network in the country, but our real hope is that this project will set new benchmarks in delivering a reliable and consistent network connectivity.” Azad said. 

RailTel owns a Pan-India optic fiber network exclusively on a railway track. It has laid out over 45,000 kms of optic fiber network across the country, which Google looks to utilize for its Wi-Fi. As per the plan, RailTel will be the ISP while Google will provide the wireless area network (WAN) and set up points of access at platforms.

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