Avail free high-speed internet at 5500 railway stations

Good news for Indian Railways passengers, now avail free WiFi at 5500 stations across India! Mahua Milan Railway station, that comes under East Central Railway zone, has become the 5500th station on the vast Indian Railways network to have free high-speed public WiFi facility. RailTel has successfully completed the work of installing WiFi at this railway station in Jharkhand under its venture of transforming the railway stations across the country into hubs of digital inclusion. The target of installing free high-speed WiFi facility at 5500 railway stations, has been achieved in 46 months. The project started from Mumbai Central station in January 2016. RailTel, a Miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, has tied up with firms such as PGCIL, Google and Tata Trust for some parts of the project. RailTel has also received funding from Department of Telecom USOF for 200 stations. RailTel has been providing free high-speed WiFi under the brand name of RailWire.

Indian Railways passengers and people at the stations who want to use free high-speed WiFi should have smartphones. They need to switch on the WiFi mode and opt for the RailWire WiFi network. The RailWire homepage will appear on the smartphone screen. The passenger needs to enter his or her mobile number on the homepage. A one-time password (OTP) will be sent to that number in the form of SMS. Subsequently, the OTP needs to be submitted and high-speed internet can be accessed for free.

According to RailTel Chairman & Managing Director Puneet Chawla the station WiFi facility has become popular amongst people. The data consumption and the number of users are growing every day, he has said. In October this year, the total number of user logins for the RailWire WiFii stood at 1.5 crore with a data consumption of 10242TB.

Free high-speed WiFi facility at Indian Railways stations is one of the largest public WiFi networks of the world. Indian Railways has said that free WiFi services will help bridge the digital gap between urban and rural India. Free high-speed WiFi facility at Indian Railways stations has ensured that students can utilize their waiting time to download study materials, vendors can do digital payment transactions, daily passengers can learn a new skill by surfing the internet. The free WiFi has been a boon to these people who otherwise suffer from poor connectivity issues, Indian Railways stated.