RailTel has announced the launch of free high-speed public Wi-Fi service in partnership with Google at Mumbai Central. The project was announced last September during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Google headquarters in Mountain View.
Google had committed to work with Indian Railways and RailTel to expand their public Wifi network quickly to cover 100 of the busiest stations by the end of this year. On his visit to India last month, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had said that this would be eventually extended to cover 400 railway stations across India.
Rajan Anandan, Vice-President & Managing Director, Google South East Asia and India, said, “By end of this year, over 10 million people will be able to enjoy this experience at 100 stations spread across the country.”
The project is regarded as the largest public Wifi project in the country to date and among the largest in the world in terms of the number of potential users.
Railwire Wifi will be available to any user who has a working mobile connection on a smartphone. Users will even be able to easily stream a high definition video while they’re waiting.
“We’ve focussed on delivering a network that is at par with the high-speed public Wi-Fi network that is available to users in developed countries. The network is built for wide coverage and high capacity usage unlike a typical Wifi hotspot which offers connectivity in a limited area and poor experience. This network will extend to cover both long distance train station and the local train station in Mumbai Central,” said Gulzar Azad, Head of Access Project, Google India.
He added that the next four stations going online will be Allahabad, Patna, Jaipur and Ranchi.
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Simar Singh is one of the youngest members of the BW team. A fresh graduate from IIMC, she also holds a degree in political science from LSR. She enjoys covering power, startups, lifestyle and a little bit of tech.
