Google has announced it is shutting down Station, the company’s program that offered free Wi-Fi across 400 railway stations in India and more than 5000 locations worldwide since its launch in 2016.
According to Google, the program is currently active in Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand but will be closed down globally this year.
The program was launched in Nigeria with pomp and pageantry at a #GoogleForNigeria event in July 2018. Google partnered with United Bank for Africa (UBA) and 21st Century Technologies to provide free WiFi across 11 locations in Lagos State, Nigeria
Speaking on the rationale behind the move, Google said it made the decision to end the program because it was becoming hard to scale up and to make a sustainable business.
The company had worked with various partners in each market where it offered the Station service, but each had different technical and infrastructure requirements. In India, it worked with RailTel, Indian Railways, and Pune Smart City, for example, while in South Africa it worked with Think WiFi.
Google also explained that the proliferation of 4G coupled with the drop in the price of mobile data worldwide means that the market has changed since the service was launched in 2016. The consequence is that free Wi-Fi programs are less necessary now than they once were. Google had previously tried to monetize the service by showing ads to users who signed into the service.
The company has revealed that it is looking to work with partners to “transition existing sites so they can remain useful resources for the community.”
RailTel in India has declared that it will continue to offer free Wi-Fi in the railway stations, an area it had previously worked with Google. It offers Wi-Fi in over 5,600 stations in total.
In South Africa, a Google spokesperson confirmed that it would be transferring operations to Think Wifi, “who will now carry out the project independently.” Think WiFi also confirmed that “free WiFi is here to stay” in its locations. Google says that it will be up to its partners to decide whether to continue offering Wi-Fi for free.
