HYDERABAD: Secunderabad Railway Station had an unusual buzz on Tuesday. Amidst the continuous announcements about trains and platforms, advertisements on television and constant coming and going of people, was also the surprised faces of those who learnt about newly launched free wi-fi facility.
New booking counters were also launched by the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya as part of the Passenger and Customer Facilitation Fortnight across its network in the country.
How it works?
Wi-Fi at the railway station is available as Indian Railways MTS Wi-Fi and can be accessed for free for the first half an hour. Necessary charges need to be paid for continued usage over that time. Once the wi-fi is available, a mandatory sign-in by providing your mobile number is necessary. This is followed by a system generated One-Time Password (OTP) that needs to be entered to use the facility.
Mixed reactions
Durga Subrahmaniam, who works in Hitech City is happy about free wi-fi.”The only time that I am not connected to the Internet is while travelling. With free wi-fi I can start my office work from the station itself. Often I get urgent emails during travel and mobile data troubles me. This would be a solution for all my office work,” she says. P Srikanth who just landed in the city from Canada is a happy man. He shares that free wi-fi in public spaces is the only thing that was missing in the city. “This is a good thing as mobile data never gets connected in some parts of the city,” he says.
Travelling Ticket Examiner Suresh Thota was one among the initial users of the facility as he had been on duty since morning. “The speed is fine for using social networking sites and browsing. But I feel that it is not fair to pay for using it for more than half an hour,” he expresses.
While quite a few people were aware of the facility being launched, a lot of them were surprised when informed.
“It is a new thing for the city and solves many purposes. But again, it is limited only to people who know how to sign in and use OTP. Though a lot of smart phone users know how to switch on wi-fi, very few will understand the other steps,” rues Vinay P, a resident of Khairatabad.
G. Rakesh, a B.Tech student expressed happiness when informed. But, “I wish it can be used for longer than half and hour. At least I can reduce my mobile data usage from today on,” he shares.