Google India's RailTel Free WiFi Is Better Here Than In London, San Francisco Railway Stations
While the WiFi service is free and fast, most commuters have yet to even discover it exists.
The Indian Railways partnered with Google to launch the RailTel WiFi service at railway stations in January last year, as part of the government¡¯s Digital India initiative. Commuters now have access to free WiFi at 140 stations across India.
RailTel plans to rolls out to 400 stations by 2018, bring subsidised high-speed internet to users free of charge.
In a recent interview with India Today, Google India¡¯s head of connectivity Gulzar Azad talked about just how fast the service is. Users are allowed high-speed access when they first log on, for 30 minutes. After that, they¡¯re connection is scaled back in order to accommodate all users on the network. ¡°The design of the network is such that in the first 30 minute time limit, we allow the user to get unfettered access,¡± Azad says.
¡°After the time limit is crossed, we make sure that everybody does still have internet and the net is still low latency. We are adjusting the network dynamically so that people can still access the internet but in the first half an hour they can access HD quality video streams.¡±
"If you compare this with Wi-Fi in London and San Francisco, you will find that the Wi-Fi is better in both coverage and capacity. The Indian Railways needs to get it out to the user."
Basically, new users are given priority when they log in, for the first half hour. The can expect download speeds anywhere between 17 to 20Mbps. After that, you can still operate your messaging apps and searches, without a noticeable dip in speed. In addition, the stations have been fitted with dual-band routers in order to cope with a possibly higher demand in the future.
