Indian Railways Adds 500 More Stations To Free WiFi List In Just 7 Days

Indian Railways has taken a giant stride in terms of providing free WiFi at its railway station. Late last month, the railways had announced the facility of free WiFi at its 1000th station. Reay Road Station on Mumbai Suburban line had become the 1000th station of the Indian Railways to get the facility. Today, the public transporter has announced its 1500th railway station with free WiFi. Indian Railways has entrusted RailTel, a Mini Ratna CPSU under the Ministry of Railways, with the work of providing free WiFi at its stations. The RailTel has claimed to have provided 500 Indian Railways station with free WiFi in just 7 days. Sahibabad Station over Northern Railway has become the 1500th station in the country to get free Wi-Fi facility provided by RailTel. Earlier the entire Delhi-Ambala and Ambala- Chandigarh sections and Kalka Shimla Hill Railways in Northern Railway had been covered with free Wi-Fi service at stations.

Indian Railways has effectively contributed towards the “Digital India” movement turning many Railway stations into platforms for Digital inclusion by providing free Wi-Fi service (Wireless Fidelity). “The high-speed Broadband Internet Connectivity has been made live with ‘RailWire’ Wi-Fi by RailTel. The PSU provides one of the largest and fastest public Wi-Fi networks of the world. Recently a record was set by covering 500 stations with Wi-Fi in a short period of 7 days.  In order to set up free Wi-Fi at all Railway stations on the Indian Railways network (except the halt stations) within a year, the PSU is ceaselessly working to achieve the goal. For this RailTel has also tied up with Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at 4791 B, C, D and E category stations,” said the RailTel.

Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel said, “We are now targeting the smaller stations and striving to complete the project by the year-end. These are very small stations catering to mainly rural/low population density areas. As there is a visible digital divide between Rural and Urban India, the rural population is often deprived of the latest telecom infrastructure mainly provided by the private operators. The Indian Railways has taken the initiative of providing free Wi-Fi at the stations so that not only the rail users but also the local populace can benefit from it.”

Designed to offer users the best Internet experience, RailWire Wi-Fi is available to any user who has a smartphone with a working mobile connection for KYC considerations. The users have to switch on the Wi-Fi mode in their smartphones and select the RailWire Wi-Fi network. The RailWire homepage automatically appears on the smartphone, the user has to enter his or her mobile number on this homepage and he/she will get one-time password (OTP) code in the form of SMS in the message box. The user needs to feed the OTP for verification. After verification, the users will be connected to the high-speed internet service.―Zee Business