New Delhi railway station to get Wi-Fi connectivity soon
The New Delhi railway station is on its way to
becoming the first Wi-Fi enabled station in India. The railway station,
which reportedly handles about 300 trains and five lakh passengers each
day, was picked on a pilot basis for this project at an estimated cost
of Rs 80 lakh.
Currently, no railway station in the country can boast of this facility. There are plans, however, to take this to other stations eventually.
A Mumbai-based company is currently working on this project that will take roughly 3 or 4 months for completion.
Once the system is fully functional, passengers on all the 16 platforms on the New Delhi station will be able to access Internet on their mobile devices.
Interestingly, the Railway is also toying with the idea of placing tablet computers at the station, instead of the existing information kiosks. Passengers will be able to view information like train position, expected arrival time and other relevant data on these tablets. "We are exploring to mount tablets on walls at certain places in the station for the benefit of passengers. The tablets will be equipped to disseminate information about the train position, expected arrival time and other relevant data required by the passenger," the official said.
Passengers aboard the Rajdhani, travelling from Delhi to Kolkata, can already access Internet thanks to a proper Wi-Fi connectivity setup onboard.
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal launched the facility on the Rajdhani train at the New Delhi station in April this year. Railway sources also said that the Rajdhani experience will be used as a pilot run for a more widespread Wi-Fi connectivity on trains. The service will reportedly be introduced on 50 train services, including Shatabdi and Duronto trains, if and when it proves to be a successful venture.
Passengers will be able to access email and browse the web with a maximum download speed of 4Mbps and a max upload speed of 512Kbps. It must be noted that you may get much lower speeds than that because the bandwidth is shared between all the passengers on the train. However, in case demand for bandwidth becomes high, the network will prioritise activities like email access over downloads or video streaming.
With plans to introduce Wi-Fi connectivity on other stations as well as on trains, we’re surely headed towards interesting times.
Currently, no railway station in the country can boast of this facility. There are plans, however, to take this to other stations eventually.
A Mumbai-based company is currently working on this project that will take roughly 3 or 4 months for completion.
Spend time better on railway stations now (Image credit: Getty Images)
Once the system is fully functional, passengers on all the 16 platforms on the New Delhi station will be able to access Internet on their mobile devices.
Interestingly, the Railway is also toying with the idea of placing tablet computers at the station, instead of the existing information kiosks. Passengers will be able to view information like train position, expected arrival time and other relevant data on these tablets. "We are exploring to mount tablets on walls at certain places in the station for the benefit of passengers. The tablets will be equipped to disseminate information about the train position, expected arrival time and other relevant data required by the passenger," the official said.
Passengers aboard the Rajdhani, travelling from Delhi to Kolkata, can already access Internet thanks to a proper Wi-Fi connectivity setup onboard.
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal launched the facility on the Rajdhani train at the New Delhi station in April this year. Railway sources also said that the Rajdhani experience will be used as a pilot run for a more widespread Wi-Fi connectivity on trains. The service will reportedly be introduced on 50 train services, including Shatabdi and Duronto trains, if and when it proves to be a successful venture.
Passengers will be able to access email and browse the web with a maximum download speed of 4Mbps and a max upload speed of 512Kbps. It must be noted that you may get much lower speeds than that because the bandwidth is shared between all the passengers on the train. However, in case demand for bandwidth becomes high, the network will prioritise activities like email access over downloads or video streaming.
With plans to introduce Wi-Fi connectivity on other stations as well as on trains, we’re surely headed towards interesting times.
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