Soon, poor network might not interfere while downloading videos on trains

SpeedFetch in talks with Indian Railways to set up Wi-Fi entertainment for passengers

If everything goes well, train travelers will get to enjoy movies, watch pre-recorded shows and play games on their mobile phones at low costs without worrying about internet bandwidth speed.

Speed Fetch (SF), an app that enables users to download and watch movies, videos and play games at 5G speeds with zero data cost at select locations, is in talks with Indian Railways to set up WiFi entertainment for passengers. The latter has already piloted it in select trains.

The company looks to deploy SF boxes in compartments and WiFi hotspots of Ozone WiFi Networks in stations, so that people can connect to WiFi, download movies and videos on the SF app at zero data cost in just a few minutes.

SpeedFetch is based on the concept of micro-caching, which means an SF Box, placed inside the train coach, will have content locally stored, with no internet requirement. When the train enters a station new content present in the station will enter the train SF box, over the WiFi connection freshly established.

SpeedFetch application has the capability of working in both online as well as offline modes. While a user is travelling on the train without internet access, they can access curated SpeedFetch content at zero data within the WiFi Intranet. In an area with internet access, users can access both curated content as well as other internet services.

According to Dipank Sharma, founder and chairman at SF, Rs 13.6 crore ($2 million) has been invested so far for developing the solution that took two years to build.

“Since all the content has been locally assembled on the SF boxes, users will not need internet to download entertainment content while on trains,” said Bobby Sarin, founder and chief executive officer, Ozone Network.

Studies have shown that, on an average, more than 80 per cent of the users are accessing social networks or watching movies/short clips while they are on move. As smartphone penetration grows in India, mobile accounts for about 65 per cent of internet traffic in India, said a May report by Mary Meeker, a venture capitalist and former securities analyst who works on internet and new technologies.

Delhi-based SF was launched in March and has about 18,000 active users with about 30 per cent app retention. Currently, Speed Fetch offers its solution through its app  at select select places across India, including Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai, using Ozone WiFi.

Going forward, SF plans to expand to more than 5,000 locations by next year. A user with the app installed detects the Ozone Wi-Fi location, connects to it, selects from list of content options available on Speed Fetch app, including three-hour long High Definition movies and games in a few minutes. SpeedFetch currently has over 10,000 hours of video and audio in various genres. A user can access by paying only for the content, and not for data. It will also have a repository of over 1,000 high definition games for users.