Free wi-fi at all railway stations by March next

Tirupati: The RailTel Corporation of India Limited of Ministry of Railways which provides free Railwire Wi-Fi across 800 railway stations in the country has been making arrangements to provide this service at all the stations in Guntakal division by March 2019.  Presently, the service is available at only seven stations in the division. 

Speaking to the media in Tirupati on Friday, the Senior Manager K Seshagiri Rao of the Corporation has said that the Pakala–Dharmavaram section in the division was equipped with optical fibre cable recently which was already there in the remaining sections. Now, the RailTel officials are looking for operators in that section to provide broadband services too.

Stating that they provide quality services commercially too through which they got several reputed customers like SV University, TTD, APSPDCL and several others, he said that the Corporation has started broadband services on demand to homes also and these will be available in Guntakal division. He said that through Railwire direct connectivity to internet gateways and peering with Google, NIC, Nixi etc., can be done. 

The Technical Manager of Railwire, AP wing Y Sitaram said that they have 5,000 to 6,000 railway customers in AP and by March 2020 they are expecting to take the number to 40 to 50,000.  To reach more home customers, the Rs 250 per month plan was approved by the Corporation under which users can get 25 GB data with 4 mbps speed.

There are several other plans too up to 100 mbps.  Both central and state government employees can get 15 percent discount whereas the railway employees can avail 20 percent discount. The connections will be available in a week time in Guntakal division and they will bring awareness among the public on their packages and quality services through road shows and other means.