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Railtel-Google combo, set to provide Net access in another 300 stations
Udhagamandalam ( oty) in the Nilgiris became the hundredth railway station in India, last week to offer passengers WiFi Internet.
The Railtel initiative in partnership with Google, is seeing 15,000 first time users connecting to the Net every day. Google's India-born CEO Sundar Pichai first committed his company to help provide WiFi in Indian railway stations, when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi in September 2015.
Till date the Indian railway station Internet has catered to 5 million monthly users. who can check their mail, research their destination, order enroute food or just download an e-book or games or a movie for offline enjoyment once they are on the move. The high-speed,Wi-Fi also enables the travelers to connect with their loved ones especially with video calling apps.
Says Gulzar Azad, Country Head (Connectivity), Google India: “We’re really excited about reaching this milestone and it is an incredible feeling to look back and see how far we’ve come since announced that we were partnering with Indian Railways and RailTel to provide Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations throughout the country. But what has really inspired us are the stories of how people are using this high-speed access to the full and open Internet. They’re using Railwire Wi-Fi to be more productive with their time and to get things done more efficiently." Launched in January this year, Google has committed to deploy the high speed Wi-Fi in another 300 stations.
Google has also introduced a resource called Google Station, which gives partners an easy set of tools to roll-out Wi-Fi hotspots in public places.
