Mumbai: On a pilot basis, the Indian Railways plans to offer passengers free streaming of movies and television shows on three long distance trains and one air conditioned local of the Western Railway. It will be like a content of demand (CoD) service once passengers board the train. The service will be rolled out on the two Rajdhani trains, the AC local of Western Railway (WR) and the Chennai Express of Central Railway (CR).
In January, RailTel had awarded the contract to M/s Margo Network, which is a subsidiary of Zee Entertainment and has the brand name Sugarbox Networks. According to the railway official, they will be implementing the project for two years and the provision of content, such as movies, TV shows, and educational programmes, which will be made available in paid and unpaid formats in a 10-year contract, which includes the first two years of implementation.
Rohit Paranjpe, CEO and co-founder, SugarBox Networks, said the SugarBox app can be used by passengers on their phone. “Consumers, at no point, will be paying anything to SugarBox. The content on various platforms that is free will continue to remain free,” he said, adding that they will be integrating the existing apps not only for online content, but also services such as ride-hailing apps.
Paranjpe said the four trains were chosen, as they had to roll out the service in three different rake types in the Railways for the pilot: suburban rake, premium outstation coaches and regular coaches. “The pilot is being conducted on 10 rakes, which have been selected for the trains. The trains will be fitted with on-board media servers, which will be pre-loaded with content that can only be accessed through a mobile application,” a senior railway official said.
