68 Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) Stations Turned Into Free Wi-Fi Zone

GUWAHATI: RailTel Corporation of India Ltd., a Miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, has successfully turned 68 railways stations of Northeast Frontier Railways into free Wi-Fi Zone out of which 23 stations were completed in a record time of one month. The Wi-Fi has proved to be a boon for the passengers of NFR and in the month of February 2019, a total number of 6,14,397 user logins and 278.88 TB aggregated data consumptions have been recorded in the stations of NF Railway.

According to a press release, Wi-Fi services to passengers are being provided under ‘RailWire’- the retail Broadband initiative of RailTel. Designed to offer users the best Internet experience, RailWire Wi-Fi will be available to any user who has a smartphone with a working mobile connection for KYC considerations.

Pan India RailTel has successfully completed work of turning 1000 railways stations across the country into Free Wi-Fi zone. With a vision of turning Railway stations into a platform for Digital inclusion, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, a Mini Ratna CPSU under the Ministry of Railways, started providing high-speed Wi-Fi service at Railway stations. The journey started in January 2016 from Mumbai Central station in Maharashtra being the first station to have the fast & free RailWire Wi-Fi and in a span of mere 2 years 3 months RailTel has completed 1000 stations. In the month of February 2019, the total number of unique users of station Wi-Fi across the country was 11577141 and aggregated data consumption was 9065.27 TB.

RailTel has provided high-speed Wi-Fi at 414 A, A1 and C category stations, associating Google as the Technology partner for Radio Access, while using the RailTel backbone for broadband connectivity. RailTel has already completed work of providing Wi-Fi 200 stations with support of Universal Service Obligatory Fund of GoI and in 386 stations with own/other funding.

RailTel envisages expanding the network in more stations in the near future. Recently RailTel has roped in Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at remaining 4791 B, C, D and E category stations across the country. These stations will have free high-speed RailWire Wi-Fi by RailTel by the end of this year. Once completed all Railway stations (except the halt stations) of Indian Railways will have fast & free RailWire Wi-Fi. These are very small stations catering to mainly rural/low population density areas. There is a visible digital divide between Rural and Urban India and rural populations are deprived of state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure availability as private operators often find it hard due to CAPEX involved. Easy and low-cost availability of Smartphones in the market provides the rural population with low-cost access device but lack of infrastructure becomes a hindrance for them to access high-speed internet. With high-speed Wi-Fi services available at Railway stations of these rural areas now Railway stations will be turned into a hub for digital growth for rural India.

Talking about the Wi-Fi at the stations of NF Railway, Sanjive Roy, GM/NFR, said, “Northeast Frontier Railway is an important zone of Indian Railways. Wi-Fi at 68 stations of this zone is proving to be really helpful for the passengers. The response to the Wi-Fi at Railway stations of NF Railway has been phenomenal. With the number of stations increasing with each passing day the Wi-Fi facility is reaching more and more people.”

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