Indian Railways, RailTel and Google launched free WiFi at the Mumbai Central station earlier this year. Today Google announced that RailWire Wi-Fi is now available in 9 more train stations – Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Ernakulam Jn, Kacheguda, Pune, Raipur, Ranchi, Vijayawada and Vishakhapatnam in India. Google said that Mumbai Central’s free Wi-Fi now serves more than 100,000 people every week, and the launch of Wi-Fi in these stations will offer access to over 1.5 million Indians every day.
To access the internet with RailWire, you need to connect to RailWire network from your WiFi settings, go to railwire.co.in from your browser, enter your mobile number in the WiFi login screen and request for OTP SMS. Once you have received the 4-digit OTP code, enter it in the login screen and press ‘Done’. You will see a checkmark and will be connected.
Google already said that 100 more stations will be operational by the end of 2016, connecting more than 10 million people who pass through every day. The project will be eventually rolled out to cover 400 train stations across India.
Commenting on the launch, Gulzar Azad, Head of Access Project, Google India, said:
The network is now live in ten key stations across the country and we are scaling up our efforts to roll out the network quickly to cover some of smaller stations where connectivity is much more limited. As internet adoption grows in India, easy and affordable access to high-speed networks is the real need of the hour. With 100 stations live, this project will be the largest publicly accessible high speed Wi-Fi network in the country, but our real hope is that this project will set new benchmarks in delivering a reliable and consistent network connectivity in the country.
Shri R. K. Bahuguna, Chairman and Managing Director of Railtel, said:
As outlined by the Hon’ble minister Shri Suresh Prabhu – modernising and improving the amenities available to passengers of Indian Railways is big part of our focus. And we are very proud to say that Indian Railways has taken the lead to offer the best Wi-Fi network experience available to passengers today in the country. And while the service will be free for a reasonable amount of time, our long-term goal is to make this project self-sustainable to allow for expansion to more stations and places, with RailTel and other partners, in the future.