Taking forward the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Digital India Mission, Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Railway Minister has announced for provision of free high-speed
Wi-Fi facility at all railway stations over Indian Railways (except Halt stations). Accordingly, the Zone has formulated a plan to implement the same with the help of Rail Tel Corporation of India Ltd (RCIL), a subsidiary of Indian Railways, and successfully completed the mission of extending free High speed Wi-Fi facility at all ‘A1’ , ‘A’ , ‘B’, ‘C’and ‘’D’ category railway stations & also all ‘E’ category stations having necessary infrastructure i.e., presence of Optical Fiber Cable.
With this, free High-speed Wi-Fi facility is available at 574 stations over the Zone. South Central Railway is far ahead among other zones on Indian Railways and is the 2nd zone to complete the task. Category wise break up is as follows-
| Category | Number of stations with Wi-Fi |
| A1 | 5 |
| A | 31 |
| B | 38 |
| C | 21 |
| D | 78 |
| E | 387 |
| F (Halt stations) | 2 |
| Newly constructed Stations | 12 |
| Total | 574 |
Free Wi-Fi services to rail users are being provided under ‘Rail Wire’ brand- the retail Broadband initiative of Rail Tel. Designed to offer the best Internet experience to users, Rail Wire Wi-Fi is accessible by any user who has a smart phone with working mobile connection for KYC considerations. To use the free Wi-Fi at railway station premises, the user has to switch on the Wi-Fi mode in the smart phone and select the Rail Wire Wi-Fi network. Rail Wire homepage network automatically appears on the smart phone and prompts to enter mobile number. The user will get one-time password (OTP) in form of SMS in the message box which has to be entered in the home page of Rail Wire. After entering OTP, users will be able to access high speed internet & can start internet browsing.
On SCR, provision of free Wi-fi was started at Secunderabad station in the year 2015. Within a span of 4 years, the facility has been extended to 574 railway stations. Provision of free High speed Wi-Fi over the zone carried out in different time lines is as follows-
| Year | Wi-Fi related Activity | Total Stations |
| May, 2015 | Secunderabad railway station is the first railway station on the zone provided with free Wi-Fi (with normal speed) | 01 |
| — | Subsequently, Indian Railways has taken a stand to upgrade and provide free High-speed Wi-Fi in place of normal Wi-Fi | |
| December, 2016 | All five ‘A1’ category stations viz., Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Kacheguda, Tirupati, Vijayawada, three ‘A’ category stations (Guntur, Aurangabad, Warangal) & one ‘B’ category station (Basar) have been provided with free High-speed Wi-Fi | 09 |
| March, 2018 | Extended to a total of 28 ‘A’ category stations | 37 |
| — | In order to expand the reach of digital initiatives even to rural areas and to make rural citizens familiar with digital Methods, the Zone has decided to provide free High-speed Wi-Fi to stations with rural background | |
| November, 2018 | 57 stations with rural background provided with free High-speed Wi-Fi | 94 |
| March 2019 | 113 stations of different categories provided with free High-speed Wi-Fi | 207 |
| October, 2019 | 367 stations of all categories provided with free High-speed Wi-Fi | 574 |
Wi-Fi access at railway stations is increasing day by day due to easy and low-cost availability of Smart phones in the market. on an average, more than 50,000 users are using this free Wi-Fi over the Zone on each day with an average upload of 5000 GB and download of 28000 GB data. Provision of free High-speed Wi-Fi at small stations located in rural areas is to encourage the rural population in adopting digital technology and make them part of Digital India. As a matter of fact, free High-speed Wi-Fi facility provided at rural railway station Gollapalli is being used by teachers of government school located near to the station to educate the students in improving skills and knowledge.
Shri Gajanan Mallya, General Manager, SCR expressed his happiness on completion of the project within reasonable time and appreciated all the officers & staff who have put their efforts in completion of this mission well ahead of all other zones on Indian Railways. on this occasion, General Manager opined that “Provision of free High speed Wi-Fi at railway stations will immensely help the rail users in different ways like developing knowledge & skills, effective communication, prompt information and entertainment as well”.
