NEW DELHI: After Google, it is social media giant Facebook, which is looking to hook up with Indian Railways to provide WiFi across railway stations. RK Bahuguna, chairman of Indian Railways' communications arm RailTel , said the company will start talks with Facebook for expanding its WiFi coverage not only to railway stations but to villages in the vicinity as well. RailTel has a readily available optic fibre-based network across some 4,000 railway stations in the country. Under the Google-RailTel Internet programme, nearly 2 million people access free WiFi every month across 21 railway stations. According to Bahuguna, providing WiFi service is not viable for RailTel, but with support from the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund, it can extend the programme to as many as 40,000 villages surrounding 4,000 Internet-ready railway stations across the country.

Source: Economic Times August 24, 2016 20:26 UTC