Google Nigeria plans to reach more than 10 million Nigerians with free Internet access in five cities in Nigeria.
Yesterday, July 26, 2018, Google hosted its second Google for Nigeria event where it made quite a number of big announcements aimed at helping more people in Nigeria and across Africa, and improving services rendered as well.
Google stated in their blog post that “access to the internet in Africa is growing but it’s still limited. Only 35 percent of Africans have access to the web, compared to 48 percent in Asia, 67 in Latin America, 85 in Europe and 95 in North America. Many internet users in Africa don’t have Wi-Fi in their homes, relying instead on the few public Wi-Fi hotspots to connect, communicate and learn.”
In the pursuit to make the internet more easily accessible to people in Nigeria, Google is launching Google Station for Nigeria: a program to provide high quality, high-speed Wi-Fi hotspots in partnership with 21st Century, one of the largest fibre network providers in Nigeria.
According to the Google, the Wi-Fi will be available in 200 Google Stations across five cities in the country which includes Lagos, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Abuja by 2019. Sites will include markets, transport hubs, shopping malls, universities and more.
Commenting on the initiative, the Vice President, Products Management at Google, Anjali Joshi, said the initiative would be scaled to other countries in Africa.
Nigeria is the fifth country in which the Google Station will be launching, after India, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico.