Google announces launch of Wi-Fi service at Guwahati

Tech giant Google has announced the launch of free high-speed public Wi-Fi service at Guwahati Railway Station in Assam. The live service would be available to users at 15 stations across the country. Besides Guwahati, the service also goes live in Jaipur, Patna, Ujjain and Allahabad Railway stations and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will formally inaugurate the same at these new stations soon, Google India’s Head of Access Programs Gulzar Azad said. Google has been deploying the service over the extensive fibre network of the Railways’ arm RailTel which provides Internet services as RailWire. Backed by the phenomenal response to the service in Mumbai Central, Google will also extend the project to cover key suburban Mumbai stations working with RailTel. “Our roll out schedule is on track and we are confident of providing the service across 100 stations in India by end of this year,” Azad said in a release. “We are seeing incredible usage of the Wi-Fi service across stations and over 2.5 lakhs users are availing the service every week, demonstrating more than double growth in less than a month,” he said. Google is committed to working with Indian Railways and RailTel to deliver high-speed Wi-Fi network that will be available to 10 million Indians a day by the end of the year, covering 100 of the busiest train stations in the country. The project will be eventually rolled out to cover 400 train stations across India. The RailTel Google free high-speed public Wi-Fi service is currently available at Mumbai Central, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Bhopal, Ranchi, Raipur, Vijayawada, Kacheguda, Ernakulam Junction, Vishakhapatnam, Jaipur, Patna, Guwahati, Ujjain and Allahabad. Reuters