Google, RailTel join hands for one of the world's largest Wi-Fi projects
Google, RailTel join hands for one of the world's largest Wi-Fi projects
The Wi-Fi project was announced by Google's India-born CEO Sunder Pichai on Sunday after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The deployment of Wi-Fi networks will start from October 2015 with Mumbai Central being the first station to get covered. The Mumbai Central station is expected to be ready for public use by mid-October.
The initial target is to make Internet accessible to one crore passengers at 100 busiest railway stations in India by mid-2016, and then later on expand it to 300 other stations, A Seshagiri Rao, Director, Network Planning and Marketing of RailTel, told ET.
He said that the company is providing its passive infrastructure that comprises fiber connected with its MPLS network to Google, which will provide Wi-Fi access through their radio access points at all the platforms. Google didn't respond to emailed queries.
"We have got fiber drop at all the railways station along with electronics. Being a pan-India operator, RailTel will offer ready availability of passive infrastructure at all the Railways station," Rao said, adding that Google has got the technology and experience, and has rolled out many WiFI hotspots in US. RailTel operates under the Ministry of Railways.
The Wi-Fi will be free for the first 30 minutes over a 24-hour period. It will be a high speed network capable of delivering HD video streaming services and passengers will be able to download a movie in 4 minutes before they embark on long journeys.
Rao said that beyond 30 minutes of usage, customers will have to pay for the services.
RailTel and Google are currently working on the monetisation model. "The focus is to provide seamless internet connection. Once we have seamless and uniform service, a revenue model can evolve for there," he added.
Railtel has built over 45,000 km of optic fibre network across the railways network in India, connecting over 4,500 cities and towns and over 5,000 railway stations in the country. It is looking to monetise its fiber network through partnerships with telecom operators.
"It's a neutral infrastructure, and can be used by any telecom service operator for Wi-Fi data offload," Rao said.
RailTel will also use the Railways Wi-Fi project with Google to publicise its own retail broadband brand RailWire, which is currently providing broadband through its collaboration with local cable operators to reach domestic home segment in the country.
"We want to use the Wi-Fi service as a brand building tool at railways station so that it helps us in spreading the word about the RailWire," Rao said.
The availability of high speed connectivity can also spur the vendors in the railway stations to offer new services and also create the possibility of building an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem in the stations, paving the way for the Railways to automate operations like monitoring of rolling stock and efficient use of electrical lighting systems.
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