The Indian Railways has one of the world’s largest public WiFi networks.
With around 2.6 crore ‘users login’s in a month, and over 9,491 Tera Bytes (TB) of aggregated data consumption, RailWire WiFi at 746 railway stations across the country has emerged as one of the world’s largest public WiFi networks.
The network, provided by RailTel, a ‘Mini Ratna’ central PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) under the Ministry of Railways, is not only one of the largest but also one of the fastest public WiFi networks.
“The response to the high speed service provided as part of turning railway stations into a platform for digital inclusion has been phenomenal,” sources in RailTel told The Hindu. Bona fide passengers are using this WiFi facility for streaming high definition (HD) videos, and downloading movies, songs and games, and engaging with their office work online, says RailTel.
For a modern handset, the speed can go as high as 40 Mbps for the initial 30 minutes of unhindered open access, which is unmatched on any other network.
The backbone capacity of each of these railway stations is 1 GBPS.
Free WiFi services to commuters are being provided under ‘RailWire’, RailTel’s retail Broadband initiative. Of the 746 railway stations, RailTel has provided high speed WiFi at 414 A, A1 and C category railway stations across the country, in association with Google as the technology partner.
RailTel has also started providing WiFi at rural railway stations, which are small stations catering to rural populations that do not have access to state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure. WiFi has been provided to 198 railway stations with the support of the Universal Service Obligatory Fund (USOF) of the Union Government, and in the remaining 134 railway stations with own or other funding.
Currently, 21 railway stations in Kerala have free WiFi, and a project to provide free WiFi to 100 more stations this fiscal as part of the CSR initiative of a Mumbai-based trust through RailTel is on the anvil, sources said.
The large size of stations, hindrances such as thick stone walls blocking coverage, customisation of fitments (as the station designs are unique), huge footfalls, power outages, and redevelopment and construction activities at railway stations, were the challenges RailTel faced while executing the project.
Mumbai WiFi, with over 1,000 hotspots, has been billed as the largest public WiFi service, and the largest public WiFi zone is the 20 km stretch between Ashok Rajpath to Danapur Railway Station in Patna.