Go with the flow! Google's free Wi-Fi service was shut down in South Africa just 3 months after its launch

As mobile data becomes cheaper, the demand for free Wi-Fi doesn't seem to be that great.

On February 18, 2020 local time, Google announced that the company has decided to gradually shut down the global free Wi-Fi project "Station" in 2020.

As a search engine giant, Google has been increasing the size of the global Internet population and Internet penetration in various ways. The "Station" project also aims to provide fast and free Wi-Fi to people affected by high unemployment and crime rates in countries such as India, Nigeria, Thailand, the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa.

In 2015, Google worked with Indian Railways and RailTel, a state-owned telecommunications infrastructure company in India (Leifeng.com Note: In India, Google is responsible for related software development, while RailTel is responsible for related network services) to launch "Station" in India, a key market for Google's free Wi-Fi service. According to the plan, by mid-2020, fast and free public Wi-Fi will be extended to more than 400 railway stations in India.

In this regard, Caesar Sengupta, Vice President of Google’s Next Billion Users Initiative and Payments, said:

The project is in line with the company’s values. We launched Station in India in 2015, giving millions of people their first taste of the power of the internet.

In November 2019, the free Wi-Fi service was launched at 125 stations in Langa, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Delft, Elsies River and Philippi in Cape Town, South Africa.

In addition, since the speed of mobile Internet access in the above-mentioned countries is generally not high, Google has also launched a series of lightweight software, such as YouTube Go and Google Go, in line with its "Next Billion Users" initiative. These software have low requirements for Internet speed, mobile phone memory, etc., and also support offline functions, which allows users to download as much data as possible when they have Internet access and use it when there is no network.

However, just three months after the project was launched in South Africa, Google said it would stop providing free Wi-Fi services and would hand over its South African business to its partner Think WiFi in 2020, which would independently implement the project in the future.

Google says:

We are developing plans to transition this service to Think Wifi, and we will continue to support them through the end of 2020. In the meantime, we remain committed to making the internet experience easier for users around the world.

In response, Think WiFi also stated in a statement that it will continue to provide this service in the same way as before and in the same way that users are accustomed to.

In response to the decision, Google said it had to re-evaluate the plan due to "complex and diverse technical requirements from countries and partners."

At the same time, the reason why Google stopped this project may be that it is difficult to find a sustainable business model to expand the program. In recent years, Google has explored ways to monetize Wi-Fi (for example, when users connect to free Wi-Fi services, they will jump to advertisements), but we don’t know how effective it is.

Caesar Sengupta also mentioned:

With mobile data becoming increasingly affordable in many markets, such as India, the service is no longer as necessary.

In fact, one year after Google announced that it would provide free Wi-Fi to India, Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Fortune 500 company Reliance Industries and India’s richest man, founded a mobile communications company, Jio (affiliated with Reliance Industries). Jio has revolutionized the Indian telecommunications market by significantly reducing the price of mobile data and even providing free mobile Internet services to consumers for a long time.

Leifeng.com learned that Jio has won a large number of users, and other mobile operators in India have been forced to lower the prices of mobile network services. More and more Indian people can afford mobile Internet access, and the mobile Internet market is also booming.

However, in the face of this situation, Google said that the free Wi-Fi service was not greatly affected, and many people still registered to use Google's free Wi-Fi service, and the amount of data consumed did not decrease.

via BusinessInsider, compiled by Leifeng.com .