Cisco and Google announced plans to roll out free Wi-Fi zones across India with Google’s gStation.
The service is already live in 25 locations in Bangalore. Google, which is promoting broadband in emerging telecom markets, said it will be available in 500 locations in Bangalore over the next few months.
“The results from gStation’s railway station roll-out have been hugely encouraging,” Sajith Sivanandan, managing director and Business Head, Google Pay and Next Billion User Initiatives, India, said.
Google earlier partnered with Railtel, the telecom arm of Indian railways, for offering free WiFi on 400 railway stations, IANS reported.
Google also joined hands with BSNL, a state-run telecom operator, and set up 38,000 BSNL WiFi hotspots in India.
The demand for public Wi-Fi hotspots is expected to go up by 100x over the next 3 years, creating new markets for Cisco and our partners, Sameer Garde, president of Cisco India, said.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said there is one WiFi hotspot for every 150 people globally. In India, eight million additional hotspots must be installed to achieve the same ratio, creating new market opportunities for infrastructure providers and internet service providers. India has only 52,000 Wi-Fi hotspots.
Cisco VNI report said nearly 59 per cent of Internet traffic will be offloaded from cellular networks to Wi-Fi by 2022.
