Watching or smart offline HD YouTube videos, refreshing music playlist, downloading games, upgrading apps and more. The super-high Wi-Fi service on Railway Stations from Google India has become a massive hit.
According to Google, around 15 lakhs passengers are now using the free high-speed internet across 19 Indian railway stations.
It’s all part of Project Nilgiri, Google India’s master plan to create world’s largest free Wi-fi hotspot network covering over 400 railway stations across India. For this, the company has partnered with Indian Railways technological arm RailTel which has an extensive optical fiber network laid along the railway lines.
The nineteen railway station with Google’s free Wi-Fi service includes Patna in Bihar, Visakhapatnam in Odisha, Ranchi in Jharkhand, Guwahati, Allahabad, Jaipur, Ujjain Junction, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Ernakulam Junction, Kacheguda, Pune, Raipur, Vijayawada, Sealdah, Lucknow Jn, Lucknow, Gorakhpur Jn and Mumbai central.
“We are delighted to share that 1.5 million Indians are now enjoying the high-speed broadband experience across 19 stations,” said Gulzar Azad, Head of Access Programs, Google India on the official blog. “With this project, our objective is to create abundant broadband access to millions of Indians who’re currently not online or are using it in a limited capacity to significantly enhance the benefits and productivity of the Internet,” he added.
Some interesting facts from Project Nilgiri
- Around 100,000 users connected to the Wi-Fi network within a week of launch at Mumbai Central.
- Railway stations in tier 2 Indian cities got higher data consumption.
- Per capita consumption of data in tier 2 cities far exceeds the consumption in tier 1 cities.
- Average data consumption per user is more than 15 times the data they would consume on a 3G data pack in a day.
- Data usage pattern shows mainly infotainment, followed by jobs lookup, educational courses, checking exam results, downloading software and upgrading phone apps.