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Good news for Nigerians. Google Station, the web giant’s public Wi-Fi service, has gone live in Nigeria. As it has done in four other countries—India, Indonesia, Mexico and Thailand—where the service has been launched, Google will partner with local service providers for infrastructure and locations while it offers a cloud-based platform and devices to provide and manage hot-spots. The Wi-Fi service 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. Google Nigeria Country Director Juliet ...

Google Go comes to Nigeria and 29 other African countries. The internet can be achingly slow and expensive in parts of Africa, undermining fledgling tech ecosystems and the ability of Africans to connect globally. Google, the largest search engine company is giving users a faster and lighter way to search and access the internet, by releasing an app that will make it lighter to browse online, with search results optimised to save up to 40% data. The Google Go app will available in 26 sub-Saharan Africa nations and  is customised to function on Android devices with low storage and will load on slow and unstable connections including 2G networks. At five megabits in size, the app will allow for voice recognition in search instead of typing, while easily switching between languages including Swahili. Speaking at the launch in Ikoyi, Lagos, Google’s Country Director, Nigeria, Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, revealed that: “There are about 30 million smartphone users and the number ...