Techplayon Experiences Vodafone Wi-Fi enabled bus shelter

Author IoT, SmartCities

Vodafone Wi-Fi which is available in Delhi with 115 locations. Recently launched Wi-Fi enabled bus shelters in Gurgaon (Near Huda city Metro station). The Wi-Fi enabled Hotspot offers free Wi-Fi upto 100Mbs or 20Mins, the services are operator agnostic. Over the same operator also offered special paid packages for Vodafone customers with different SSID name.

Recently TechPlayon team visited the Vodafone bus shelter in Gurgaon, which hosts variety of Wi-Fi services, Vodafone users can also buy online vouchers or can use their existing 4G/3G packs. This is very useful when user is not able to get good data rate using cellular network , he can use his data pack over Wi-Fi and do not need to pay anything. When we visited we could easily see more people sitting on the Vodafone bus shelter than the nearby shelter not even (10 meters away). We also observed people using Wi-Fi Services.


   

The access points were camouflaged but the coverage was seamless at and around the bus shelter. The Access points were transmitting on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz Bands and hence would be available for most of the devices.

We used some free applications available on play store/appstore , more famous Ookla speed test tool and NetVelocity. Just to mention with NetVelocity we got to see more information than only speed test such as Wi-Fi Channels, Band, Frequency, RSSI etc.

Throughput results were decent, considering around 10 people were present (not sure all were using the Wi-Fi Services) we used the free SSID, being closer to hidden Wi-Fi AP the signal strength was great and we achieved ~4-5Mbps seamless. The video watching experience on YouTube was decent and social media was smooth. Below are speed test screenshots

             

          

How to use the free Wi-Fi Services:

Switch on the Wi-Fi and you will see two SSIDs as the picture below. “@VFWiFiVoucher is for free Wi-Fi. Once you select the SSID. You will routed to a captive portal where you can buy vouchers or WiFi pack based on your requirement of use free Wi-Fi for 20Mins or 100MB.

If you are having Vodafone Sim card you can opt for the other SSIDe.g. MyVodafoneWiFi and can use their 3G/4G cellular data pack over Wi-Fi. The dedicate SSID might be reserved to provide better user experience to in house customers .