Now, free Wi-Fi facility at Mangaluru Central Railway Station

There are 27 Wi-Fi access points at Mangaluru Central Railway Station covering the entire station area

A passenger using Wi-Fi facility at Mangaluru Central Railway Station in Mangaluru on Tuesday. — Photo: H.S. Manjunath

Any internet geek would be happy to spend time at the Mangaluru Central Railway Station for the reason that he would get unlimited and high-speed Wi-Fi connectivity free.

A Railtel official told The Hindu here on Tuesday that the facility started working at the Central Railway Station on September 10, and at Kozhikode on September 29. Mangaluru Junction Station would get the facility under Phase 2 of the project.

There are 27 Wi-Fi access points at Mangaluru Central Railway Station covering the entire station area, including all platforms, waiting halls, reservation centre, etc.

Robust backbone

The official said that a user gets up to 30 mbps speed for the first one hour, which comes down to not less than 1 mbps thereafter. Railtel has set up a backbone of 1 gbps bandwidth at Mangaluru Central. Railtel has a major point of presence in Mangaluru since the region connects Mumbai through Konkan Railway, and Bengaluru and Mysuru through the South Western Railway, he said.

A senior official with the Southern Railway said that the server for the facility belongs to Google. Railtel and Google would be sharing advertisement revenue to cushion the cost as the facility is being provided free.