Passengers on SE trains plying the north-south route can stay connected to the Internet late this month when the Vietnam Railway Corporation launches free wifi.

Nguyen Van Binh, deputy general director of Hanoi Railway Passenger Transport Company, a subsidiary of the corporation, said free wifi would be made available on the cross-country trains SE 1, 2, 3, 4 on January 20 in time for the peak Lunar New Year (Tet) travel season. Tet begins on February 19.

The State-owned corporation is in cooperation with military-run telecom firm Viettel to offer free Internet service on some trains on a pilot basis, which will be expanded to other trains of the corporation in the coming time.

Binh said Viettel will be installing hotspots along the north-south railway to ensure stable Internet access for passengers, but there will be no wifi signals when trains are in tunnels.

This is an effort of the railway sector to improve service quality.

Mobile phone subscribers can still use 3G service on the traveling train but the quality of the service is not good.

The railway corporation has already launched wifi at some major stations such as HCMC and Hanoi.