eGovWatch: Free public Wi-Fi service at Mumbai Central goes live

Service will be rolled out to cover 100 of the busiest stations by end of 2016, and will eventually roll out the service in 400 railway stations across India. Allahabad, Patna, Jaipur and Ranchi to follow shortly.

Making Internet available to commuters who travel through railway stations everyday, the Indian Railways’ arm RailTel which provides Internet services as RailWire via its  fiber network, has announced the launch of free public Wi-Fi service in partnership with Google at Mumbai Central.

Railwire Wi-Fi will be available to any user who has a working mobile connection on a smartphone. Users will be able to easily stream a high definition video while they’re waiting, research their destination, or save some videos for offline viewing, download a book or a new game for the journey.

“By end of this year over 10 million people will be able to enjoy this experience at 100 stations spread across the country,” said Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google South East Asia and India .

“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 Wi-Fi hotspot which offers connectivity in limited area and poor experience. This network will extend to cover both long distance train station and the local train station in Mumbai Central. The next four stations we’ll bring online will be Allahabad, Patna, Jaipur and Ranchi and others will follow very shortly. said, Gulzar Azad, Head of Access Project, Google India,” he told.

The project was announced last September during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Google headquarters in Mountain View. Google has committed to work with Indian Railways’ and RailTel to expand the network quickly to cover 100 of the busiest stations by end of this year and will eventually roll out the service in 400 railway stations across India.