In January this year Google and India Railways rolled out free WiFi at Mumbai Central. Since then the service has reached 19 stations and is now used by over 1. 5 million Indians.
"Last week we rolled out the network at four of India's largest stations -- Sealdah, Lucknow Jn, Lucknow and Gorakhpur Jn -- and we are delighted to share that 1.5 million Indians are now enjoying the high-speed broadband experience across 19 stations," said a Google spokesperson. "At this scale, this is India's shining example of a project that is contributing in bridging the digital divide by making high-speed broadband Wi-Fi network more easily accessible to millions of Indians who cross these stations."
According to Google, the free Wi-Fi that the company is providing using the RailTel infrastructure is very popular in Tier 2 cities. "We saw 100,000 users connect to the network within a week of launch at Mumbai Central and as we started rolling out the network at more stations, we saw exponential jump in the consumption of the network," the company spokesperson said. Apparently the poor state of broadband in smaller towns of India is ensuring that people connect to the railway stations Wi-Fi more often.
"Our data reveals that usage in Bhubaneshwar overtook Mumbai central within a day of the launch, and we're seeing similar usage patterns emerge in tier 2 cities like Patna, Jaipur, Vishakhapatnam. Per capita consumption of data in tier 2 cities far exceeds the consumption we are seeing in tier 1 cities," said the spokesperson.
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