Google has launched its Wi-Fi service at Bhubaneswar railway station, the latest location to begin beaming out the high-speed platform since its arrival back in January this year. The tech behemoth plans to extend it to 400 stations all over India.
As per Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, Google is looking to expand the Wi-Fi facility to 16 more stations soon and cover 100 areas by the end of the year. The brand recently kickstarted the service in 8 places namely Vishakhapatnam, Ranchi, Ernakulam Jn, Bhopal, Vijayawada, Pune, Raipura and Kacheguda.
The additions will allows 1.5 million more daily commuters to access the Wi-Fi network. Google asserts that nearly 100000 passengers are taking advantage of the platform every week at Mumbai Central station. The initiative is the result of a partnership between the US-based company and RailTel.
Google provides the radio access network, while RailTel supplies the power and fiber network infrastructure which stretches across 45000km along the railway tracks. According to PTI, Ujjain, Jaipur and Allahabad are going to be next stations to get the high-speed Wi-Fi facility.
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Gulzar Azad, Google India’s Head of Access Projects, had previously stated that the firm is looking to rapidly scale up its efforts to deliver connectivity to smaller stations where internet access is insufficient. Anyone who wishes to try it out simply has to enable the Railwire network in their device and input the OTP number which they get over SMS.
While the Google Wi-Fi platform is free for now, the eventual goal is to make the service a self-sustaining enterprise.