THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
The Wi-Fi service at Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway Station was dedicated to the nation on 28 th October 2016, by Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament of India.
The Wi-Fi facility for the visitors & the rail users of Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway Station has been commissioned by RailTel in association with Google for providing high speed state of the art world 
class internet experience to the commuters. The service built over the fiber network of RailTel is designed to offer high-speed broadband like experience to users. Travelers passing through these stations will now be able to easily stream a high
definition video while they’re waiting, research their destination, download a book or a new game for their journey.
In the state of Kerala, this kind of Wi-Fi service is already available at Ernakulam Jn., Thrissur & Kozhikode Railway stations. Kollam Jn. will become Wi-Fi hotspot by November.
Thiruvananthapuram Central is in the capital city & one of the busiest Railway stations in Kerala with around 40,000 footfalls per day accounting to more than 1.5 crore footfalls every year. A total number of 35 access points, 18 access switches and 3 Fiber switches have been installed to handle to provide seamless fast Wi-Fi to the huge crowd in this stations.
RailTel Corporation of India Ltd., a Mini-Ratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, has taken the lead in providing high speed Wi-Fi for the use of passengers at A1 & A category Railway stations. RailTel roped in Google as the technology partner for setting up fast Wi-Fi network initially covering 100 A1 & A category stations for providing fast Wi Fi to around 10 million Indians a day, by the end of the year. Wi-Fi services to passengers are being provided under ‘RailWire’, the retail Broadband distribution model of RailTel. Designed to offer users the
best Internet experience, RailWire Wi-Fi will be available to any laptop/smartphone user who has a working mobile connection.
Under this partnership, Wi-Fi services have already been formally inaugurated at 32 stations viz. Mumbai Central, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Ranchi, Raipur, Gorakhpur, Ernakulam Jn., Kacheguda, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Lucknow, Lucknow Jn., Ujjain, Bhopal, Tirupati, Tiruchchirappalli, Guwahati, Jhansi, Jaipur, Mughalsarai Jn., Churchgate, Bandra, Bandra Teminus, Dadar WR, Dadar CR, Khar Road, Kalyan, Lokmanya Tilak, Allahabad, Thrissur, Jabalpur and Chennai Central.
Moreover, Wi-Fi services have been commissioned and soft launched at 39 more stations Sealdah, Pune, Puri, Tambaram, Chennai Egmore, Hazarat Nizamuddin, Chandigarh, Byculla, Panvel, Jodhpur, Madurai, Thane, Borivali, Mangalore Central, Coimbatore, Hajipur, Kurla, Andheri, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Kozhikode, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Cuttack, Dehradun, Mathura, Amritsar, Belapur, Vashi, Solapur, Gwalior, Indore, Ajmer, Kota, Udaipur City, Surat, Gaya, Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Arakkonam Jn across the
country and will be formally launched soon.
The work at 21 more stations (Jalandhar City, Ambala Cant, Delhi Jn., Anand Vihar Terminus, Ghaziabad, Moradabad, Aligarh, Agra Cantt (upgradation), Varanasi, Dhanbad Jn. Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Tatanagar, Howrah, Bardhamaan, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Nagpur, Kollam Jn., Gulbarga and Bangalore City) are in progress.
Railway stations are the places where a good cross cross section
of the society is available. This initiative is part of bridging the digital divide & providing high speed access network to all rail users with financial inclusion of Local Cable Operators. Once implemented this shall be one of the largest public Wi-Fi projects in the World.
