Google has termed it “the biggest and fastest public Wi-Fi” project in the world. Claims aside, the US tech giant’s partnership with Indian Railways to provide free Wi-Fi services to railway stations across the country is commendable, to say the least.
For one, the project touches the nerve centre of India—the railways—which is still the primary mode of transportation for a majority of Indians. Every year, over 8.1 billion passengers travel on trains. That roughly translates to over 22 million passengers a day. As per Google, over five million people in the country are latching on to its free Internet service every month (about 1.7 lakh people everyday). Of this, 15,000 people are accessing the Internet for the first time in their lives everyday, the company said. That’s a whole lot of users.
The free Wi-Fi is finding more takers in smaller cities than in larger ones, given the poor connectivity of high-speed broadband outside of the major metropolitan centres. Also, the free Internet is much faster than 3G Internet that is most widely used in India. On an average, users of the free railway-station Internet—despite being in transit, and being limited to one hour of usage per person per day—are utilising 15 times more data than they would consume on 3G in a day, Google said. The ambitious railway Wi-Fi project has come a long way since September 12, 2015, when Indian Railways announced its partnership with Google. After starting with Mumbai Central—which, in January last year, became the first railway station in the country to offer free Wi-Fi facility—the railways continued connecting other busy stations such as Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Howrah, Kanpur, Mathura, Aligarh, Bareilly and Varanasi with the free Internet service. At last count, 115 stations across the country have been covered under this scheme. The target is to reach 400 stations by the end of this year, sources say.
As per reports, the project employs Google’s Fiber technology, through which the company provides Internet services with a speed of 1 Gbps. Google Fiber was launched in 2010 and the service is available only in the US at the moment.
Meanwhile, aiming to provide connectivity in remote areas, Indian Railways has announced that it will set up
Wi-Fi hotspot kiosks at about 500 stations and help people access an array of online services, including various government schemes.
Christened ‘Railwire Saathi’, the Wi-Fi kiosks will function like a PCO for ‘Digital India’ and enable people to use services like e-commerce, online banking, besides offering them access to insurance schemes, e-ticketing for train and bus services, etc. Automated form-filling, and mobile and DTH recharge are other services that Railwire Saathi is expected to provide in areas with limited connectivity.