The Hindu : Internet on trains soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2003

National

National

Internet on trains soon

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 3 . After successfully testing live radio broadcasts on trains, the railways has validated the technology for providing the Internet.

The tests, conducted on the Northern Railway, were the first in the world on running trains, claimed the railways.

The tests were conducted for short distances for a fortnight. They may now be done on a long distance train, provided the Railway Board is forthcoming with the approval. After testing live radio news broadcasts from August last year, the Railway Board developed cold feet for unexplained reasons and withheld permission to the Prasar Bharti to broadcast the commentary of World Cup cricket matches. The Internet, however, has better chances of succeeding because a railway corporation, RailTel, has surplus bandwidth on its optical fibre network at every station. After starting with a bang, the RailTel had slowed down its activity for some unexplained reason, thus giving other telecom corporates time to plan and lay down national level OFC backbones. It was thus robbed of the opportunity of locating a corporate willing to take up a part of its huge bandwidth on a national level. This time, it will be keen on making up for the lost opportunity. Moreover, the Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, has been apprised of the proposal and he mentioned this during the presentation of the Railway Budget this year. It will be difficult for the railway bureaucracy to leave the proposal hanging.

After the long distance tests, passengers on `elite' trains such as Rajdhanis and Shatabdis can expect to log on to the world-wide web while on board. There will be two ways to go about it. If one is carrying a laptop, all one has to do is plug in the power socket provided next to the seat and insert the RailTel-provided pre-paid card for wireless connectivity. Alternatively, one can browse the net using a fully equipped kiosk in selected compartments.

Officials claim that connectivity will not be impaired even after trains pull out of large cities. ``No matter how small the village one is passing through, or how remote an area, one can still be connected. Business need not wait for the journey to end and the e-mail you wanted to send is just a click away,'' said an official spokesperson. Although the modalities of the RailTel's prepaid cards were being worked out, he said all efforts would be made to ensure easy availability of pre-paid cards. In other words, it may be easier in future to get RailTel cards than railway tickets.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National