After Bangalore, New Delhi becomes the second city to provide free wi-fi at its railway station, starting today. Railways Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu and Manoj Sinha, minister of state, launched wi-fi broadband services for public at New Delhi Railway Station.
The commuters will be allowed 30 minutes of free internet and will later be charged as per the package designed by Railwire. The commuters would have to spend Rs 25 for 30 minutes and Rs 35 for an hour, beyond the free usage; this would be valid for 24 hours. This extra time can either be purchased online using credit cards, or by visiting wi-fi help desks for buying scratch cards. These help desks are set up at Paharganj and Ajmeri Gate sides of the station.
Railtel is the system integrator for New Delhi railway station and the company has installed 60 Wi-Fi access points at different locations to provide ubiquitous wi-fi broadband services. The project has costed the government a hefty amount of Rs 50 lakh, and an annual charge of Rs 16 lakh would be spent for maintaining the project. Depending upon the feedback of New Delhi and Bangalore railway station, Indian Ralways will introduce wi-fi services in 75 A1 category stations and 325 A category stations.
Also Read: Free WiFi facility at Bangalore City Railway Station
Wi-fi at Bengaluru station was commissioned in October 2014. For the remaining A1 category stations, work is in progress and is likely to be commissioned in the next 12 months and subsequently work in A category stations will be taken up.
In addition, wi-fi facility in three rakes of Howrah Rajdhani Express has been provided as a pilot project and Indian Railways further proposes to provide wi-fi facility in select trains like Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duranto.
The wi-fi facility will be provided by selecting suitable technology for continuous connectivity with the World Wide Web when the train is on move.
