Google on Monday announced that it will wind down its ‘Google Station‘ programme that provided free wi-fi at railway stations in India and other countries.
According to reports, Google stated that going online has become much easier and cheaper over the last five years since the ‘Station’ was launched in India.
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Caesar Gupta, Google vice president of the Next Billion Users (NBU) announced this through his blog and wrote, ”As we look to the next phase of enabling access, it’s clear that since we started five years ago, getting online has become much simpler and cheaper. Mobile data plans have become more affordable and mobile connectivity is improving globally.”
He also wrote, “India, specifically now has among the cheapest mobile data per GB in the world, with mobile data prices having reduced by 95 per cent in the last five years, as per TRAI in 2019. Today, Indian users consume close to 10 GB of data, each month, on average.”
The US tech giant said it is working with its partners to transition existing sites so they can remain useful resources for the community.
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Google had launched ‘Station’ in India in 2015 in a partnership with Indian Railways and Railtel to bring fast, free public WiFi to over 400 Indian railway stations by mid-2020.
Apart from India, Google Station is available in Nigeria, Thailand, Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa.