After Google, now Facebook will bring Free Wi-Fi to Indian railway stations

After Google, now Facebook is now keen to make a comeback in the Indian market six months after the company faced criticism against its idea of the Free Basics Programme; the social giant is keen to offer free Wi-Fi services in Indian railway stations.
The company is intending to offer Wi-Fi services across India and is also focusing on expanding its service to villages.
In tête-à-tête with Economic Times, RK Bahuguna, chairman of Indian Railways’ communications arm RailTel specified that Facebook India got in touch with them for the Wi-Fi initiative and they will engage with the company for the expansion of Internet access programme across railways stations to include villages in the vicinity.
RailTel is also an Internet service provider and possesses a category-A license for it. As per Bahuguna, offering Wi-Fi service is not viable for RailTel, but with assistance from the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund, it can spread out the programme to as many as 40,000 villages adjoining 4,000 Internet-ready railway stations across the country.
The Mark Zuckerberg -headed Facebook recently concluded a pilot across 125 rural locations post purchasing bandwith from BSNL for Express Wi-Fi service under which it is planning to provide high-speed internet across India.
Unlike Google, Facebook wants to proffer internet to smaller rail stops making it available to adjacent villages through additional access points. Bahuguna further said, “Through this (Facebook) initiative, we will be able to offer data services up to a 10-km radius from a connected rail stop, which however can further be increased by up to 25 km via additional access points.”

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