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Indian travelers can now spend quality Internet time on Howrah Rajdhani trains thanks to the launch of Wi-Fi facility on New Delhi - Howrah Rajdhani Express.
The service will be launched by Pawan Bansal, union minister of Railways in New Delhi today and will be attended by Vinay Mittal, chairman, Railway Board; Kulbhusan, member (electrical); PK Srivastava, additional member (telecom); and VK Gupta, GM, Northern Railway.
Indian Railway's vision 2020 envisages provision of broadband internet facility on important mail and express trains. In year 2007 Techno Sat Comm (TSCL) had proposed to Indian Railway, for the provision of multimedia entertainment and Wi-Fi internet on trains using satellite solution. Accepting TSCL request, Railway Board in consultation with RDSO (Research, Design & Standards Organization of Indian Railways) ordered trials by Techno Sat Comm on Mumbai-Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express in 2008. On completion of successful trials, the commercial launch was allowed in couple of trains.
In keeping with Vision 2020 a pilot project to provide broadband Internet facility in New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani (3 rakes) was included in the Indian Railways works program of 2009-2010. Eastern Railway floated an open tender and Techno Sat Comm was awarded the contract on merit and has completed the project.
Broadband Internet access to passengers have been provided using two way satellite hybrid with 2G/3G and Wi-Fi. The system consists of on-board satellite tracking antenna, multi-band antenna and Wi-Fi broadcasting equipments for on-board last mile connectivity.
The primary broadband link to backhaul the internet traffic is established via satellite and in the event of non-availability of satellite the multi-access router automatically switches from satellite to 2G/3G links to achieve 99 percent connectivity.
Consumers will get downstream bandwidth of 4 Mbps shared between three rakes and upstream equal to 512 Kbps per train. The consumer will also have multi-layered firewall protecting intrusion.