Imagine my surprise when my phone automatically connected to a random Wi-Fi network on the Delhi Metro. Scared that I had connected to a malicious Pakistani hacker-wifi-that-will-tell-ISIS-where-I-live network, I checked my phone.
Lo and behold, there was a strange little Wi-Fi network called *imitates french accent* called Oui Weefee Net-waak. Now, my experience with Metro Wi-Fi networks had not been good till date. The predecessor of this Wi-Fi network was this irritating thing called MetroFi, which was only present at two stations, as far as I know, Rajiv Chowk and Kashmere Gate. Given the fact that I try to flee Rajiv Chowk at the speed of light, no use for me their bruh.
Plus, the registration process for MetroFi was unnecessarily cumbersome and failed more than it worked. The OTP was not delivered to my phone many times and the data limit ran out faster than my pocket money.
Needless to say, I was skeptical of this new entrant, but surprisingly, it was good, in fact, it’s pretty damn good.
First up, it works seamlessly. One registration and you’re good to go. They track your MAC address so that
- You don’t do hacker s***
- You don’t have to log in again
This new system has been installed by a company called TechnoSatComm, which has many other major contracts in its bag. This company installs Black Boxes in trains, is going to provide internet in the Indian Railways as well, provides RFID solutions and so on.
Read More: Your Long Delhi Metro Rides Needs This One Puzzle To Stay Awake: We LivED It
As for the speed, the official company website says
“The WiFi service will ensure a 50 Mbps (3 times 4G) minimum speed to passengers’ devices while the maximum speed could potentially go up to 1.6 Gbps as per Wave 2 standards“
The speeds are above and beyond what you need for normal to moderate stuff like web surfing, social media, even streaming at a decent quality. The down speed is actually so good and most importantly stable that I could download a 300 MB episode while waiting for an empty metro for like 15 mins.
B-A-L-L-I-N
And the best part is that this wifi system is installed in all Blue Line Metro stations, as well as all Airport Express stations, with plans to expand to the Yellow Line soon. This means that the two major arterial metro lines will be fully wifi supported pretty soon. Well played, Modiji.
As a student, I cannot tell you how amazing this is. Free stuff is always welcome. And that too at all major stations that me and many other students frequent. Even though we live in the Jio age, 1GB of data a day is as commonplace as an engineering institution in Kota (3 cheers for a shitty educational system), sometimes you do need that extra boost of internet connectivity.
The first and obvious reason is that underground tunnels block mobile signals. But in addition, the amount of HD content available these days easily eats up all the data that our benevolent service providers give us, and this free metro Wi-Fi is a godsend in that case.
This has happened to me many times where I have exhausted my data limit stuck in the metro, watching an amazing TV series and the needed internet urgently. Oui Wi-Fi to the rescue.
There have been no further updates as to any data caps or price structure going forward. What we do know is that this company has been awarded a 10-year contract to install Wi-Fi in Delhi Metros. So, we can look forward to the same, if not better quality of Wi-Fi in all the stations that exist right now and will come up in the foreseeable future, at least in the next 2-3 phases.
Amazing stuff, isn’t it?
Image Credits: Google Images
You would also like to read:
http://edtimes.in/2017/09/metro-vs-cars-which-transportation-to-take-our-bloggers-fight-it-out-in-this-weeks-flipped/
