Google's free Wi-Fi in India | Fusion - WeRIndia

India is the second largest internet user after China. It currently has 413 million internet users and every month a huge number of new users are coming up. Technological giants like Facebook, Google and Microsoft are doing everything they can to make use of this gold mine of users to get maximum profits and at the same time provide better services to Indians.

Recently Google started its initiative by partnering with Railtel (Railways Telecom Wing). The service is to offer free Wi-Fi to Mumbai train commuters. Furthermore, Google will also expand its service by installing free Wi-Fi in cities of Allahabad, Patna, Ranchi and Jaipur in its next phase.

In the first phase of the initiative by Google, it is targeting 100 busiest railway stations in India. The remaining 300 stations will get the service in its second phase. At some of the stations like Bengaluru and Pune the routers of Google’s Wi-Fi has a bigger scale than the normal home Wi-Fi. In the first hour, users will be able to experience the internet connection at a very high speed. After the first hour, the speed will slow down.

The free WiFi service is being started in Indian Railways first because of the high amount of traffic. The increasing number of smartphone users in India makes it a very big market. There are an estimated 204.1 million smartphone users in India. It is expected that India will surpass U.S. this year.

The concept of having free WiFi is one that is welcomed by almost all Indians. Even though it’s free, this initiative is not only beneficial for Indians. India is the fastest growing economy among BRIC nations.

Recently Facebook’s ‘Free basics’ initiative met with severe backlash because of harming net neutrality. It seems like Google will be learning from that failure to make careful steps in its initiatives.

Image Credit: Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay  (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/it/photos/motore-di-ricerca-su-internet-1433323/