The free Wifi offering service, Google Station, has been dropped in South Africa after three months of introducing it.
Google Station was introduced in the country in November 2019 and was online in 125 locations offering free, fast, and reliable internet access. The project, which started in India was made available to populations associated with high crime rates and unemployment.
According to a spokesman, the company was proud to have been able to expose millions of people to the power of the internet for the first time.
Unfortunately, it had become difficult for Google to find a sustainable business model to scale the program, the company said, which in recent years expanded Station to Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria, Philippines, Brazil and Vietnam.
From inception, Google also explored ways to monetize the Google Station program. The company, for instance, began showing an ad when a user signed in to connect to its internet service.
The service will now be operated independently by a partner company Think WiFi based in South Africa. Reasons for dropping the initiative were unclear, but Google stated it was reevaluating its plans because of different technical requirements across partners. It would be working closely with Think WiFi in transitioning the service and supporting them till the end of 2020.
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