Holding true to their word Google under the leadership of Sundar Pichai has launched a series of Internet initiatives in India, which will bolster Internet access to the masses. Google has announced free Internet WiFi in 52 different railway stations after it first launched the free WiFi service at the Mumbai CST station in January this year, in partnership with the government’s RailTel services.
The tech giant announced that people will be able to log in to internet for free at some of the key railway stations including the Delhi station, Guwahati, Patna junction, Bhopal, Jhansi, Coimbatore. Google further announced the launch of the Google Station service in India wherein universities, malls and other larger setups can pay to sign up for the with Google to provide and setup public WiFi.
Google Station aims at filling in the gaps of Internet accessibility in larger spheres with community response. It is currently open for registration by larger venues and other organizations, network providers and others who wish to make internet accessibility easier for the masses n most public areas. To further their program Google has considered the slow internet connecitivity issues in India and launched updates on popular services such as youtube such as YouTube Go which will help stream data even on slower connections along with providing a video preview that doesn’t buffer. This comes at the heels of the Youtube Offline feature, which was launched earlier this year to help maximize data usage options for all users. The new app also has the capability of sharing the video directly from the app to nearby devices without any need for high Internet speed.
Google also launched Allo, a mass chat messenger in response to watsaap earlier this month and India featured in one for the first countries to see its launch. This is a big achievement given the fact that India provides one of the biggest market potential for internet providers. “ there are more than 3.5 million users on rail WiFi alone out of which close to 15000 are first time internet users on a daily basis. This just goes to show the potential India has in bringing forth the next internet revolution”, stated Caesar Sengupta VP of the Next billion users at Google.
