Google collaborated with Raitel which is a telecommunication arm of Indian Railways introducing Free WiFi in one station earlier this year in January at Mumbai Railway station. Now Google and Railtel are expanding further to 9 more stations across India to introduce Free WiFi. This expansion is said to cater to approximately 1.5 million passengers and visitors who will be visiting the stations.
The new stations in which the Free WiFi service is being released are Pune, Bhubaneswar, Bhopal, Ranchi, Raipur, Vijayawada, Kacheguda (Hyderabad), Ernakulum Jn (Kochi) and Vishakhapatnam. Next in line to get the Free WiFi service next are Jaipur, Ujjain and Allahabad. The service will be launched in Bhubaneshwar this Sunday by railway minister Suresh Prabhu.
Google India head of access project Gulzar Azad told PTI, “The network is now live in 10 key stations across the country and will enable about 1.5 million people to access high-speed Internet service. We are scaling up our efforts to roll out the network quickly to cover some of smaller stations where connectivity is much more limited.”
In all the stations at which the service is being launched, users will be able to access the network using their smartphones for free. By the end of the year Google and RailTel are collaborating to spread the Wi-Fi Network to 100 stations and deliver high-speed internet to 10 million Indians by year end. The final goal of the collaboration is to reach 400 stations across India which will then cater to a very huge number of users.
Looking at the statistics from the Mumbai launch, about one lakh people use the service every week at the Mumbai Central station. The service will be useful in providing many users access to fast internet while on the move and for uses who are waiting for the trains at station can do some productive work or even have fun with the fast internet being provided for free.
