Mumbai: Eight more suburban railway stations in Mumbai have been enabled with Wi-Fi services, an initiative of the Railway Ministry to bridge the digital divide and provide high-speed access network to all rail users, who represent a cross section of society.

The Wi-Fi facility at Churchgate (Western Railway suburban terminus), Bandra, Bandra Terminus, Dadar stations on the Western and Central Railway, Khar Road, Kalyan and Lokmanya Tilak has been commissioned by a Railway Public Sector Undertaking, RailTel, in association with Google as the technology partner for providing high-speed internet experience to the commuters.

Eighteen stations of Mumbai Suburban were chosen for Wi-Fi services in the initial phase, of which Mumbai Central was inaugurated with fast RailWire Wi-Fi on January 22 this year. Apart from the eight stations launched in Mumbai on Monday by Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu, work is in progress for the remaining nine stations — Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), Borivali, Belapur, Byculla, Kurla, Vashi, Panvel, Andheri and Thane — and will be formally launched soon.

The service is being provided at a speed of 1 GBps. A total of 318 access points, 120 access switches and 30 fibre switches have been installed at these eight stations to provide seamless Wi-Fi to the huge number of commuters visiting these stations.

Pune is the other city in Maharashtra where the Wi-Fi services have been launched and by the end of this year, the service will be provided in Nagpur and Solapur also.

The services built over the fibre network of RailTel are designed to offer high-speed, broadband-like experience to users. Travellers passing through these stations will now be able to easily stream high-definition videos while they are waiting, research their destination, download a book, movie, song or a new game for their journey.

In addition to the eight stations that have been launched, RailWire Wi-Fi has been soft launched at eight more stations — Sealdah, Allahabad, Pune, Puri, Tambaram, Chennai Egmore, Hazrat Nizamuddin and Chandigarh — and will be formally launched soon in different parts of the country.

RailTel Corporation of India Ltd has taken a lead in providing fast Wi-Fi for the use of passengers at A1 and A category railway stations. The Wi-Fi network initially covering 100 such stations shall enable services to around 10 million Indians by the end of this year. The services will be available to any user who has a working mobile connection on a smartphone.

Across India, under this partnership, Wi-Fi services have already been formally inaugurated at 21 stations — Mumbai Central, Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Ranchi, Raipur, Gorakhpur, Ernakulam Junction, Kacheguda, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam, Lucknow, Lucknow Junction, Ujjain, Bhopal, Tirupati, Tiruchirappalli, Guwahati, Jhansi, Mughal Sarai Junction and an upgraded system at Chennai Central.

Work at 24 more stations including Madurai, Thrissur, Mangaluru, Coimbatore, Calicut, CST, Andheri and Panvel is in progress.