Santacruz becomes 1,600th railway station to get fast and free Wi-Fi

Santacruz Railway station.Pic/Twitter RailTel

Santacruz railway station on the Mumbai suburban network has become the 1,600th station in India to have a fast and free public Wi-Fi access provided by RailTel.

"Mumbai Suburban Railway has seen the major milestones were achieved for the Railway Station Wi-Fi project. The journey of RailWire station Wi-fi started from Mumbai Central. Then Reay Road became the 1000th station's couple of days back and now Santa Cruz has been declared as the 1600th station in the country to have fast free RailWire Wi-Fi. This Wi-Fi is a boon for millions of passengers commuting through Suburban Railways every day," Ravinder Bhakar, Western Railway's chief public relations officer said.

Providing public Wi-Fi at 24X7 crowded stations is a huge challenge and unprecedented in India. RailTel has provided high-speed Wi-Fi at 985 stations with own/other funding and at 415 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 also completed work of providing Wi-Fi 200 stations with the support of the government of India's Universal Service Obligatory Fund," Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel said.

More stations lined up

RailTel started providing the free public Wi-Fi service at the Indian railway station with a vision of turning Railway stations into a platform for Digital Inclusion. In the next phase, RailTel has roped in Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at remaining 4,791 B, C, D and E category stations across the country. The idea behind providing free Wi-Fi to these very small stations catering to mainly rural/low population density areas is to provide the people with state of the art Wi-Fi facility. Easy and low-cost availability of Smartphones in the market coupled with free Wi-Fi at railway stations in the rural area will go along way in the digital growth for rural India. While private operators find it hard to create telecom infrastructure in Rural areas due to high capital expenditure involved, RailTel is penetrating the hinterland of the country to bring state-of-the-art Telecom Infra for the rural population bridging the digital divide of urban and rural India.

How to use:

Free 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. To use the Wi-Fi the user has to switch on the Wi-Fi mode in the smartphone and select the RailWire Wi-Fi network. After the RailWire homepage network automatically appears on the smartphone, the user has to enter his or her mobile number on this homepage. The user will get a one-time password (OTP) in the form of SMS in the message box which has to be entered in the home page of RailWire. After entering OTP Users will be able to access high-speed internet & can start internet browsing.

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