Railtel in association with Google announced the launch of free public Wi-Fi service at nine new railway stations in India on fiber network.
The free Internet services called RailWire will be available in Pune, Bhubaneshwar, Bhopal, Ranchi, Raipur, Vijayawada, Kacheguda (Hyderabad), Ernakulum Juction (Kochi) and Vishakhapatnam, in addition to Mumbai Central.
With these launches, Google has rolled out public Wi-Fi service across ten railways stations, enabling access to over 1.5 million Indians.
Railways Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu will formally inaugurate the free Wi-Fi service soon.
Google works with Indian Railways and Railtel to deliver Wi-Fi network that will be available to 10 million Indians a day by the end of the year, covering 100 of the busiest train stations in India. The project will be eventually rolled out to cover 400 train stations across India.
“With 100 stations live, 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 in the country,” said Gulzar Azad, head of Access Project, Google India.
RK Bahuguna, chairman and managing director of Railtel, said: “While the service will be free for a 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.”
