The company is an information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure provider and is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in India. It is a Mini Ratna (Category-I) Central Public Sector Enterprise, wholly-owned by the Government of India and under the administrative control of the Ministry of Railways. It was incorporated on September 26, 2000 with the aim of modernizing the existing telecom system for train control, operation and safety and to generate additional revenues by creating nationwide broadband and multimedia network by laying optical fiber cable by using the right of way along railway tracks.

The transport network is built on high-capacity dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology and an Internet protocol/ multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network over it to support mission critical communication requirements of Indian Railways and other customers. The company operate data centers in Gurugram, Haryana and Secunderabad, Telangana to host and collocate critical applications for customers including the Indian Railways. In addition to strategic and critical network infrastructure services, it also undertakes various ICT projects for the Indian Railways, central government and state governments, including various train control system projects for Indian Railways.

Business area of the company

The company offers a diverse range of services across industries. Its portfolio of services can be broadly classified as below:

Telecom Network Services:

• National Long Distance (NLD) Services: The company provide digital capacity to carry long distance telecommunication services including various tele-services such as voice, data, fax, text, video and multimedia. As part of NLD services, it offers its enterprise customers with: (i) leased line services; and (ii) MPLS based virtual private network (VPN) facilities.
• Internet Service Provider (ISP) Services: As part of the company’s ISP services, the company offers enterprise customers Internet leased line services with multiple bandwidth options ranging from 2 MBPS and above across India. It also offers retail broadband services through its ‘RailWire’ platform.
  Telecom Infrastructure Services:
• Passive Infrastructure (IP-1) Services: The company provides storage, power, cooling, and physical security for servers and networking equipment of its customers and connect them with a variety of telecommunications and network service providers. In addition, it provide space on microwave towers for collocating base transceiver stations (BTS) for telecom operators, small cell sites for extending their mobile coverage and space for collocating mobile switching centers. It also provide single core dark fiber for transmission of digital video signals to multiple system operators (MSOs) for cable distribution.

Managed Data Center and Hosting Services:

• Data Centre and Managed Hosting Services: The company offer a variety of data centre services including Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS, dedicated hosting, managed services, cloud computing, managed e-Office services, disaster recovery services, Aadhar authentication services and other IT related services such as load balancing services, application hosting, bandwidth services and advanced firewall services.
• Telepresence Services (TPaaS): The company offer end-to-end, high-definition, secure, hosted multitenant video conferencing facility bundled with required bandwidth as a service.
• Security Operations Centre as a Services (SOCaaS): The company’s security operations centre (SOC) provides centralized and consolidated cyber security incident prevention and security event monitoring services, it has detection response capabilities and supports requirements of other business units. It is able to provide both offsite and onsite security solutions.

Projects (System Integration Services):

• ICT Hardware, Software and Service System Integration Projects: The company collaborates with partners and OEMs to undertake ICT hardware implementation, software delivery and digital transformation projects including creation of state wide area network (WAN) and its maintenance, data center and facility management services, Wi-Fi projects, city surveillance projects, laying of state wide fiber optic network and its maintenance, implementation and maintenance of end-to-end IT applications of enterprises.
• Digital Services: The company also collaborate with partners who offer solutions/ applications that are hosted on its data centers, it offers digital services including unified communications, Wi-Fi as a service, e-tendering/ e-auction/ smart payments and disaster management services.
• Other Services: Other services offered by the company include consultancy services for ICT services and solutions and signaling services including signal design and design automation software tools for the Indian Railways.

Achievements, awards and accreditations

• 2010 Received the ‘MOU Excellence Award (2018-09)’ in the electronics and communications sector.
• 2014: Awarded the ‘Innovative Managed Services Award’ at the Aegis Graham Bell Awards 2014 for RailWire services.
• 2015: Received an award under the ‘Digital India’ category at the Aegis Graham Bell Awards 2015.
• 2015: Awarded the ‘Best Carrier of the Carrier’ Award at the VAR INDIA Star Nite Awards 2015.
• 2015: Received an award at the 12th National Awards for Excellence in Cost Management in the public-service sector (medium) category from the Institute of Cost Accounts of India.
• 2016: Received ‘Leadership Recognition’ in the internet and broadband category at the ‘Voice & Data Leadership Awards 2016’.
• 2016: Received ‘Leadership Recognition’ in the enterprise business services category at the ‘Voice & Data Leadership Awards 2016’’.
• 2016: Received 2nd Prize in the category of ‘Effective and Innovative use of Digital Communication’ at the SCOPE Corporate Communication Awards in 2016.
• 2016: Received an award that recognized the company as one of the ‘Top 50 PSU Organisations with innovative HR practices’ at the Asia Pacific HRM Congress organized by Times Ascent.
• 2016: Received an award for ‘Technology Adoption’ at the 4th PSU Awards 2016.
• 2017: Received the ‘Leadership Recognition Award’ in the “Internet & Broadband Services” category at the Voice & Data Telecom Leadership Awards, 2017.
• 2017: Received an award in the ‘Best Public Wi-Fi Project’ category at the My India Wi-Fi India Summit and Awards 2017.
• 2017: Received the ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ for the railway station wi-fi project initiative at the mBillionth award South Asia 2017.
• 2018: Received an award in the ‘Best Social Wi-Fi Project’ category at the My India Wi-Fi India Summit and Awards 2018.
• 2018: Received Voice & Data Telecom Leadership Award for Corporate Social Responsibility.
• 2019: Received an award at the Digital Innovation and Cyber Security Summit 2019 organized by Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Government of Haryana.
• 2019: Received Express Computer Digital Innovation award.
• 2020: Received Governance Now PSU award 2020 in Digital PSU Category.
• 2020: Received CSR Times Award as the Best PSU (Gold Category) in women empowerment category for its Menstrual Health Management Programme.
• 2020: Received the Silver SKOCH Award in Digital Economy for e-office Category, 2020.

Major events and milestones

• 2000: Incorporated as ‘Schedule A’ Central Public Sector Enterprise under the Ministry of Railways.
• 2002: Obtained the license for infrastructure providers category – II (IP-2) license to start commercial operations of leasing bandwidth to private telecom companies.
• 2012: Conferred ‘Mini Ratna Category-I’ status by Ministry of Railways, Government of India.
• 2014: Completed the SASEC Regional Network Project and launched TpaaS services.
• 2014: Incorporated wholly owned subsidiary – RailTel Enterprises Limited.
• 2017: Crossed Rs 1,000 crore total income for the first time since company’s incorporation.
• 2018: Implemented e-Office – paperless working system in South Central Railway HQ and Guntur division.