Mumbai Central to be India's first railway station to get Google's Wi-Fi facility

Mumbai Central is all set to become the country's first railway station to get Google's high-speed public Wi-Fi connectivity.

The state-run Railtel Corporation, which has partnered with Google, will install Wi-Fi hotspots at 400 stations in India, starting with Mumbai Central. The service is expected to be ready for public use by mid-October.

The Wi-Fi facility will be free for the first 30 minutes over a 24-hour period. It will be a high-speed network capable of delivering HD video streaming services and passengers will be able to download a movie in four minutes.

"Customers will have to pay for the service if they use it beyond 30 minutes. Railtel and Google are working on the monetisation model," said A Seshagiri Rao, director, network planning and marketing at Railtel.

The Wi-Fi project was announced by Google's CEO Sundar Pichai after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Initially, the aim is to make internet accessible to one crore passengers at the 100 busiest railway stations in India by mid-2016. Later this will be expanded to 300 other railway stations.