CHENNAI: Implementing one of the announcements made in the budget, Indian Railway has started offering free wi-fi service at the Chennai Central station from Thursday. This is a pilot project which will soon be rolled out in other A1 stations across the country.
The service was to be formally launched on Thursday by Union Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda. However, this has been postponed to Friday, though the service has already been made available to passengers. A kiosk has been opened at the station to serve customers.
According to a senior official, passengers can use up to 30 minutes of free wi-fi service. When one connects to the wi-fi, it will redirect to billing.railwire.com where passengers will have to register their mobile number. A one-time password will be sent to their mobile which will then have to be entered as code, the official explained.
After the 30-minute free service, passengers can pay for any additional service through internet banking or buy top-up cards at the kiosk. Frequent travellers can also avail a plan for 2, 3 and 5 hours, the validity for which will be two weeks. There will also be an unlimited plan charged at `499 per month.
The bandwidth on offer will be 512 kbps.