Google Announces Plan to Put Wi-Fi in 400 Train Stations Across India | Hacker News Reader

Google Announces Plan to Put Wi-Fi in 400 Train Stations Across India

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100 pointstestrun30 comments

I know people usually equate WiFi with "The Internet", but the distinction is important; in particular, if Facebook's misleadingly-named Internet.org wanted to "put WiFi in train stations", they could say the same thing, but it'd just be like one big LAN. In this case, however, it really does appear to be the full Internet:

"We’d like to help get these next billion Indians online—so they can access the entire web, and all of its information and opportunity"

On the other hand, it makes sense for Google since most people use it for the search engine; "free Google access" is not very useful if you're not able to actually visit any sites in the search results.

Yes, it looks more like Google's free WiFi in Starbucks coffees.

By the way, Facebook renamed Internet.org "Free Basics" : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10277425

Irony of the day: While Google is planning to put Wi-Fi in 400 stations in India, there is still no Wi-Fi on trains running through Silicon Valley.

While I've only taken a couple of short train rides in SV I recall having no problems with mobile data coming through. And most people in US have decent data caps. Is this the same for India? I know they tend to be sensitive to data usage and if they don't have the mobile coverage it's not really comparing the same thing for user need.

Also more generally why should Silicon Valley have to have the best/first/most of everything Internet? This statement felt narrow minded to me. If you've not been fortunate to travel much you'll be amazed about the world outside Silicon Valley. It's definitely an epicenter of tech but absolutely not the be and end all.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you told me the trains in India are faster, more frequent, and more reliable as well. Even the Kazakhs would be ashamed of Caltrain. The only reason we put up with Caltrain is our collective hangover from the suburban car age.

> trains in India are faster, more frequent, and more reliable as well

A laughable claim. Trains in India are slow, late (but probably not more than in other countries), crowded, comparatively dirty, uncomfortable and they are often lacking basic safety measures.

This comment makes me feel like HN is becoming a parody of itself. Why does everything have to be so hyperbolic?

Google already has those users.

India != Silicon Valley. Not even close.

Google already snoops on those users because almost all of us use gmail. They don't need to provide Wi-Fi.

It's fascinating to see when infrastructure in developing countries surpasses that of some developed countries.

In Argentina, for example, every single gas station has free wifi. It works exceptionally well, and is always free.

Interesting. In Peru, every hotel had free wifi, and it was always terrible, even in relatively pricey hotels.

I dont see how wifi in 400 stations is going to help anyone. If the stations are in well populated areas, then mobile internet should not be a problem in any case. In rural and lesser developed areas, wifi means nothing to consumers. The younger generation does have wifi smartphones, thanks to Chinese companies putting out dead cheap ones. However, of what use is the wifi in railway stations, I fail to understand.

If the use is for train information or related stuff, the govt. has to maintain that info on screens and notice boards.

If it's for talking to others, well, that too is of limited use. Most people wait for maybe a couple of hours before they board onto a train.

If this is to help people waiting in lounges, then I'd rather they (govt.) monetize it. Especially for those waiting in AC class lounges. In anycase, no one here really plans for long layovers in railway stations.

I just dont get of what use is wifi in railway stations.

Better thing for the govt. would have been to invite and pay google for creating a distributed fibre optic network across India, connecting rural villages, using their expertise in handling large amounts of data.

I agree with your light gray comment. Coming from San Francisco, I've been working in India for the past month and have made a few unexpected observations:

1. Despite scarcity of 3G and land line data, consumers hardly budget their usage; when the network is available, it's every-man-for-himself trying to watch youtube & consume other media

2. Train loading & unloading is incredibly fast. This can make the station a hectic place to be, even for locals.

3. The same Uber vs Local Taxi (In this case, Auto Rickshaws aka Tuk-Tuks) battle exists here, with Uber charging less than they pay drivers to price out the competition

4. Young people, boys and girls, want to be either engineers or doctors.

Train Station Wi-Fi will be great for already-online mobile users to briefly consume content and call an Uber home, but that's not what's going to 'get the next billion Indians online to access more opportunities.' People love free Wi-Fi, but this RailWire contract is a bigger win for Google than anyone else. Let's see some secondary schools come online!

Well you have to start somewhere. If they plan to build their own fibre in the future, then this is just a test run to see usage patterns and test the infrastructure. Of course you're not going to put the fibre in some unused rural area. I don't think this is a charity move from Google, and they didn't really disguise it as one (unlike Facebook).

While you're being downvoted (probably due to HN aversion to "downer debbies" for tech stuff), the question is legitimate. Why just train stations (the 400 part is just a beginning I assume). I was thinking along the same lines. One plausible answer seems to be pragmatism. There's a govt. agency running fiber along train tracks all over India (http://railwire.co.in/who-we-are.html) and this allows Google to light up the fiber using their ISP expertise and have 400 test nodes to begin with. Think of it as potentially 400 new cities where Google (or some partner) could then start a googe fiber type ISP (but perhaps use wireless local loop for quicker results).

Free WiFi or for that matter anything free that comes at the expense of someone else is always a good politics. It fetches votes.

Of course, I assume that Indian government will monetise this service to some extent and also integrate it with the existing Rail infra to give better service to people. For example if I could simply book a Mumbai Local ticket on my phone while on station that will greatly reduce the long queues in front of Ticket windows and Ticket Vending machines.

If the shops on railway platform could accept Apple Pay or Android Pay that would be great too.

With regards to mobile device and Internet penetration in India:

http://yourstory.com/2015/07/mobile-internet-report-2015/

If everyone who can afford a phone with WiFi can afford a mobile Internet plan, then India is better in that regard than my EU country. I know many people who can only afford to read their email, apply to jobs, etc on WiFi hotspots.

I don't think Google has the Civil engineering resource or the nesercery political clout to get the wayleaves.

This is smart. By offering free WiFi in 400 train stations, they're undoubtly getting the Right of Way allowances to run fiber along the majority of the rail system

This will allow them to spread a Google-owned backbone across the country that they can use as the start of rolling out Google fiber in different cities.

This isn't about free Wifi. It's about free Right of Way for their infrastructure.

Where are you picking this up from? The official Google announcement [1] only talks about Google using RailTel's fiber network?

1 - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/bringing-the-internet...

sigh That's what I get for making assumptions and not reading in depth enough. You're absolutely right, they're going to be leasing existing fiber.

All the Railway tracks in India post 1980s were built assuming that the same track will also have cables for communication. But in reality that capacity is not much used.

The practical implications of this will be interesting - I'm expecting to see "Google WiFi" honeypots at stations that don't have this.

Also a possibility to see folks camped up at these stations hustling on Upwork etc - particularly in areas where mobile internet is not so reliable.

Also expecting to have EVEN MORE people walk into me as they stare at their phones...

I wonder if this will be unconditional Internet. Over the last few months the government switched off Internet in two states.

--edit-- Its back again before someone points it out

Google, please come to Myanmar.

They want to snoop on India citizens. PM Modi is selling the country to these corporations.

Google's action is infinitely better than Facebook's "Facebook for everybody!" push (another current India-related news item)...

But the aims are the same. I'd change "infinitely" with "only slightly" here.

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