Google and Railtel have officially expanded the reach of its free Wi-Fi service to 5 more stations across India. Travelers at Ujjain, Patna, Allahabad, Guwahati and Ujjain can now take advantage of the platform while waiting for a train.
With the addition of 5 more stations, the Google Wi-Fi project now has a presence in 15 locations in India. It’s well on its way to achieving its goal of 100 stations by the end of the year. To recall, the scheme made its debut at Mumbai Central station in January and has since expanded to places like Bhopal, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi and Vijayawada.
Google India Head of Access Programs Gulzar Azad asserts that the free Wi-Fi service is getting guzzled up by over 2.5 lakh users every week. He claims these numbers signify a 2x growth in less than a month’s time. As per PTI, the initiative is doing especially well in Mumbai Central.
Google says that that nearly 100000 people are logging into its Wi-Fi facility at Mumbai Central on a weekly basis. Based on this positive response, the firm now plans to increase its reach in the city to key stations like Churchgate, Bandra Terminus, Kalyan, Dadar, Borivali, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Vashi, Thane, Kurla, and Panvel.
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As for its long-term plans, Google is aiming to roll out the Wi-Fi platform to 400 stations all over India. It’s taking advantage of Railtel’s 45000km pan-India optic fiber network to deliver the service. While the network is free for now, the search giant hopes to phase to a pay model in order to maintain long-term growth.