Google free WiFi railway station delivers the internet to 6000 different India railway stations.
If free Wi-Fi was a religion, then it would be the most followed one on our planet. In an attempt to provide “fast Wi-Fi for everyone”, Google Station started offering free Wi-Fi facility at railway stations across India.
Unfortunately, this Google free WiFi railway station is one hell of a gift to be so utterly misused by own instincts. A recent report published by RailTel is a shocking revelation of it.
Free Wi-Fi Usage at Railway Stations – Shocking Facts:
Patna Junction Railway Station that falls under Danapur Division of East Central Railway zone topped the charts with highest data usage on the free Wi-Fi service.
Would you guess what would be the most searched thing on this free Wi-Fi network? It is nothing but search for PORN sites.
As per the data revealed by records of the use of data by users, porn dominates the search. This is followed by Apps download, and Bollywood and Hollywood films, of course.
Interestingly, Patna Railway Station is one of the most crowded ones with more than 200 trains passing through it daily. This is mainly due to its presence between New Delhi and Kolkata metros. Undoubtedly, this is one of the busiest rail routes in India.
It won’t be a big surprise if a lot of passengers miss their train from Patna Railway Station. 🙄
Records of RailTel, a mini-Ratna enterprise of Government of India, undertaking once again proved that porn is the synonym of Wi-Fi for most men. Post porn search, people use free Wi-Fi for accessing YouTube videos, and Wikipedia.
After Patna, Jaipur Railway Station followed by Bengaluru and New Delhi Railway Station use the most of the free Wi-Fi facility.
Google Station Free Wi-Fi Project:
The Google Station is a free Wi-Fi hotspot service at major railway stations. This program is being provided under “Railwire”. To the unaware, Railwire is the retail broadband distribution model of Railtel Corporation (Ministry of Railways).
This innovative project is commissioned by Indian Railways in collaboration with Google India. The main aim of the project is to provide high-speed internet access to rail commuters.
The project was planned so that people waiting for the train can check important emails, chat with their near and dear ones.
With the stupendous success of Google Station program in India, the search giant has rolled it out in other countries as well. Currently, this Google Free WiFi project is expanded to Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Brazil, and South Africa.
Statistically, India has the second-largest population (451 million monthly active) internet users in the world after China. But still, there are almost a billion Indians who aren’t online. The overall Internet penetration in India is still only 36%.
Digital India with Google Free WiFi Railway Station Project:
PM’s Digitial India initiative is a significant step towards connecting rural India with high-speed internet network. As a part of it, India’s first high-speed public Wi-Fi service was rolled out at Mumbai Central railway station in January 2016.
And the next three stations to have free Wi-Fi facility were Patna in Bihar, Ranchi in Jharkhand and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. To date, this service has been extended to 5500 railway stations across the country.
On December 06, 2019, Jharkhand’s Mahua Milan station (under East Central Railway zone) became the 5,500th station in the country to have Google free Wi-Fi facility.
Incidentally, Ellenabad railway station (under Bikaner Division of North Western Railway) became the 3000th railway station to get free public Wi-Fi facility on August 19, 2019.
If the reports are to be believed, the Government plans to introduce this free Wi-Fi usage service in 6000 railway stations by this year-end. If the reports are to be believed, there is a target of upgrading infrastructure at 8500 stations in the next two years.
Undoubtedly, this will create the largest public Wi-Fi system in the world.
RailTel Bridging the Urban-Rural Digital Divide:
Recently, the RailTel has also tied up with Tata Trusts and PGCIL for providing free Wi-Fi facility at 4,791 B, C, D and E category railway stations. As per the reports, these are very small railway stations in low-density areas catering to the rural population.
With this, one can expect a digital bridge between rural and urban India. Currently, RailTel is offering 1Gbps Wi-Fi but planning to upgrade it to 10Gbps.
Due to the high demand for enjoying free internet, the passengers are experiencing the slow speed of the internet. In order to address this speed issue, the RailTel is upgrading its infrastructure.
As per the historical records, Google CEO Mr Sundar Pichai said, 2 million people are logging on to free Wi-Fi deployed by Google and RailTel at major railway stations across India in the month of July 2016.
Surprisingly, October 2019 recorded a total of 15 million user logins in RailWire Wi-Fi services across all stations consuming 10242 TB of data.
Google Free WiFi Railway Station – Empowerment or Spoiling the Society?
Interestingly, the railway officials accept that most of these people use Free Wi-Fi facility for downloading movies, watching YouTube and even adult content.
The user avails this facility by sitting at the railway station premises (along foot over bridges, ticket counters or platforms).
Unfortunately, this internet crazy generation is misemploying the digital initiative and will definitely miss their train if this porn search continues.