New Delhi: RailTel, a “Mini Ratna (Category-I)” Central Public Sector Enterprise is an ICT provider and one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country launching more high-speed paid WiFi at over 4,000 railway stations across the country. This WiFi facility will be beneficial for people and the company.
RailTel started providing the free public Wi-Fi service at the Indian railway stations with a vision of turning Railway stations into a platform for digital inclusion. By this scheme, it is expected that there will be additional revenue of Rs 15 crore per annum to the company. The company mentioned the additional revenue of over Rs 60 crore from its content on demand (COD) initiative is also expected.
It is also said, “In pre-COVID times, more than 2.9 crore people were using the service monthly. Once the situation normalises and footfall at stations becomes regular, a revenue of Rs 10-15 crore annually is expected from the paid WiFi”.
Approx 6,000 stations across the country are currently available for the WiFi services, and the connection of WiFi at the station premises are accessible to anyone with a smartphone and an active connection (after verification through OTP sent via sms).
RailTel has launched prepaid plans for its Railwire WiFi at over 4,000 railway stations across India. Going forward, a passenger can use 30 min free WiFi per day at 1 mbps speed at these stations. For using the WiFi facility at a higher speed of up to 34mbps, the user needs to choose a plan with a higher speed by paying a nominal fee.
The plans include Rs 10 for 5GB per day, Rs. 15 for 10 GB per day, Rs. 20 for 10 GB for five days, Rs. 30 for 20 GB for five days, Rs. 40 for 20 GB for 10 days, Rs. 50 for 30 GB for 10 days and Rs. 70 for 60 GB for 30 days.
“We did a detailed trial run of Prepaid WiFi at 20 Stations in Uttar Pradesh and based on the response and detailed testing, we have launched this plan at over 4000 more stations across India. We intend to launch the prepaid plans for all the stations with our RailWire WiFi this financial year”, Shri Puneet Chawla, CMD/ RailTel said.
