Tech giant Google is ending Station, a program that saw the company offer free Wi-Fi across over 400 railway stations in India and over 5000 locations worldwide including Lagos and Abuja, TechCrunch reported. Google said the Station program will be wound down globally this year.
Google said it was becoming difficult 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.
Google added that the increased prevalence of 4G combined with the declining price of mobile data worldwide mean that the market has changed since the service was launched in 2016. The implication appears to be 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.
Google says that it is working with its partners so that it can “transition existing sites so they can remain useful resources for the community.”
