Free WiFi to be launched at Bhubaneswar station

New Delhi

Designed to offer rail users the best internet experience, WiFi will be available to any user who has a smartphone.

Trial of the WiFi has been going on for some time at Bhubaneswar in Odisha and it will be launched on Sunday, said a senior Railway Ministry official. After Mumbai Central, Bhubaneswar will be the second station to have Google’s free WiFi service in the country. Rail users would be able to stream high definition  videos while waiting for their respective trains at the railway station with WiFi becoming operational.

Under the Digital India initiative, Railways is committed to providing better internet facilities to the passengers at 100 busiest  stations by the end of this year. Besides Bhubaneswar, trials are going on at about 10 more stations including Jaipur, Patna, Ranchi, Ernakulum, Allahabad, Lucknow and Guwahati, to have the WiFi service working shortly.

Railtel, a PSU of the Railways, in collaboration with Google is providing free WiFi service at stations.

Eventually, the service will be rolled out at 400 stations across the country covering all major rail premises.

Railtel owns a Pan-India optic fiber network exclusively on railway track. It has laid out over 45,000 kms of fibre optic networks across the country, which Google will utilise for its WiFi.

The network is built for wide coverage and high capacity usage unlike a typical WiFi hotspot which offers connectivity in a limited area.

As per the plan, Railtel will be the ISP, while Google will provide the Wireless Area Networks (WAN) and will set-up the points of access at platforms.