Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday launched the country’s first free public Wi-Fi service at the Mumbai Central Station.
Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday launched the country’s first free public Wi-Fi service at the Mumbai Central Station. The service, christened RailTel, has been rolled out in collaboration with Google.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Prabhu said that the ministry has accorded high priority to improving passenger amenities at all railway stations. He said the proposal to provide Wi-Fi services was first announced in the railway budget last year. “The project got a boost when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Google Inc’s headquarters in California and the subsequent meeting of Google CEO Sunder Pichai with the PM in New Delhi resulted in the successful introduction of the service,” Mr Prabhu said.
The minister said that free public Wi-Fi facility would be made available in 100 of the busiest stations of Indian Railway and would later be extended to 400 more stations.
The RailWire public Wi-Fi system would be accessible by all Wi-Fi enabled smart phones. Users will have to visit the Wi-Fi section in their phones and select the RailWire network. A four digit OTP (One Time Password) would be sent via SMS and upon entering the code they can log into the free public Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi services would soon be available at Bandra Terminus and Surat under the Mumbai Division and also at Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Indore stations of Western Railway.
