Google station provide 6 places you can access free Internet wi-fi service in Lagos Nigeria

Google Station, the web giant’s public WiFi service, has gone live in Nigeria, and people can now enjoy free WiFi powered by Google.

Google has partnered with Nigerian fiber cable network, 21st Century, to provide its public Wi-Fi service, Google Station, in six places in the commercial capital, Lagos, including the local airport.

Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Google Country Director, said the free Wi-Fi service will be extended to 200 locations in five cities across Nigeria by the end of 2019.

The other locations across five additional cities are Port Harcourt, Abuja, Kaduna, Enugu, Ibadan.

She revealed this on Thursday, July 26, 2018, at the second Google for Nigeria event, at the Landmark event centre in Lagos.

Here are the 6 public locations you can get the free internet:
1. Ikeja Mall

2. Murtala Muhammed  Airport 2 

3. Unilag

4. Computer village

5. Landscape center, Oniru

6. The plams, Lekki

With this offer, Google is targeting the poor internet infrastructure in Nigeria which is a major challenge for businesses and over 190 million citizens. Google Station’s speed of 30 megabytes per second (Mbps) is far above Nigeria's average internet speed of 1.86 Mbps.

Google Station is not the Google’s first internet access-focused initiative in Africa. In Ghana and Uganda, it has launched Project Link through which it builds fiber-optic networks to help local internet service providers and mobile operators provide faster broadband.

The company is also in talks with telecom operators in Kenya to launch Project Loon, an ambitious plan to beam internet to users using solar-powered high-altitude balloons. Facebook also has a history of internet access projects in Africa, including Express WiFi and Free Basics.

While these projects are couched as moves to help more Africans come online, they are also plays to increase revenue. Increased internet access means more Africans will spend time online, likely using tech companies’ products and thus driving revenues through advertising and paid services.

Last year, during his first visit to Nigeria, Google CEO Sundar Pichai launched YouTube Go, an “offline first” version of the popular video sharing platform for users with slow internet connections.

The company said the developments are aimed at helping more Nigerians and Africans benefit from the opportunities available on the web.

Listing some of its other achievements, the company said it has trained over 2.5 million of the 10 million Africans it had promised to train by 2022, under its Digital Skills Programme.

It also said it has trained 9,000 Africans in mobile app development, adding that the Launchpad Accelerator Africa initiative graduated 12 promising startups from across the continent in June.