Google has announced the launch of free high-speed public Wi-Fi service at Ujjain, Jaipur, Patna, Guwahati and Allahabad Railway stations.
Google has been deploying the service over the extensive fiber network of Indian Railway’s arm Railtel which provides Internet services as RailWire. With these launches, the service is now live and available to users at 15 stations across the country.
Google will also extend the project to cover key suburban Mumbai stations working with RailTel. Google will deploy the service in Dadar, Bandra Terminus , Churchgate, Thane, Kalyan, Panvel, Vashi, Kurla, Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, Borivali and a few others.
“We’re seeing incredible usage of the Wi-Fi service across the stations and over 2.5 lakhs users are using the service every week, demonstrating more than 2x growth in less than a month. Backed by this response, Railtel and the Ministry of Railways has decided to extend the project to cover key suburban stations in Mumbai as well. The service is now live across 15 stations covering key corners of the country from Pune to Guwahati, and from Ernakulam to Jaipur . Our roll out schedule is on track and we are confident of providing the service across 100 stations in India by end of this year,” said Gulzar Azad, Head of Access Programs, Google India.
Each station has been equipped with Gigabit fiber backhaul and can be further upgraded based on the usage.
The Railtel Google free high-speed public Wi-Fi service is currently available at Mumbai Central, Pune, Bhubaneshwar, Bhopal, Ranchi, Raipur, Vijayawada, Kacheguda, Ernakulum Jn, Vishakhapatnam, Jaipur, Patna, Guwahati, Ujjain and Allahabad and will eventually be rolled out to cover 400 train stations across India.
To connect to the service, users will have to select Railwire and then open the website and enter the phone number. The user will then receive an OTP which will allow the user the login and avail the service.
