Assam’s Dibrugarh becomes the 400th station to get free Wi-Fi services on Thursday, with which Google has successfully completed its public Wi-Fi programme to provide India’s railway stations with free internet.
In 2016, Google in collaboration with Railtel Corporation, launched free Wi-Fi services to 400 railway stations under the government’s Digital India programme.
“Bringing high speed connectivity to millions of Indians across railway stations has been an incredible journey and underscores the importance of investing in public Wi-Fi as a crucial step in getting high quality internet to everyone in India,” K. Suri, Director, Partnership India, Next Billion Users, Google India, said in a statement.
Offered as a free utility service under the brand name “RailWire”, users have 30 minutes of free access to the internet, in which they can on an average consume 350 MB of data per session.
Over 35 per cent of users on the network are first time Wi-Fi users. Interestingly, over 50 per cent of users accessing the internet multiple times a day highlight that they work to pursue their occupation from the train stations, the Morung Express.
100 of the busiest railway stations across India were made internet-friendly in the first year itself. Then 300 new stations were added.
RailTel is exploring sustainable ways to provide Wi-Fi across all stations on Indian Railways and also spread high-speed connectivity to homes by the collaborative entrepreneurship model of RailWire, the statement said.