While there are over a billion people in the world who have access to smartphones and the Internet, that still leaves between 5-6 billion people with limited-to-no Internet access – in India alone, there are still one billion people not online, despite the fact that it now has the second largest population of Internet users in the world. As a step to help one of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets get Internet to more of its consumers, Google will help bring high-speed Internet to India’s train stations, announced by CEO Sundar Pichai today. The collaboration between India and Google was announced when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Google’s HQ.
The infrastructure that Google is looking to put in is broadband Internet to provide Wi-Fi in 400 stations across India – 100 of these are expected to be finish by the end of 2016, and even finishing these 100 will provide Internet to 10 million more people everyday as they pass through these stations. With this new infrastructure, the growth of Android One, and the ability for apps like YouTube (and Maps soon) to work offline, India is definitely an area that is going to see even more incredible growth in the near future.
What do you think about Google helping to provide Internet to India? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Google Blog
