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I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

onemileatatime.com

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Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#2
Google Fi sucks, it's way too expensive. The last several years have seen an explosion of MVNOs, mobile virtual network operators. I use Mint Sim and get 3gb LTE/month with unlimited talk and text, and unlimited throttled internet after the 3gb, for $15/month.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#3

Google Fi sucks, it's way too expensive. The last several years have seen an explosion of MVNOs, mobile virtual network operators. I use Mint Sim and get 3gb LTE/month with unlimited talk and text, and unlimited throttled internet after the 3gb, for $15/month.

Part of the appeal of Google Fi for me is the unlimited free international roaming. Do you know if there's any competition in that area?

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#4
post #3

Google Fi sucks, it's way too expensive. The last several years have seen an explosion of MVNOs, mobile virtual network operators. I use Mint Sim and get 3gb LTE/month with unlimited talk and text, and unlimited throttled internet after the 3gb, for $15/month.

Part of the appeal of Google Fi for me is the unlimited free international roaming. Do you know if there's any competition in that area?

And no other carrier offers up to 9 additional data only SIMs on the same plan without additional charges.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#5
I just traveled to Japan, the Phil, Bulgaria, San Francisco, and Boston without having to change sim cards or worry about my data situation. I'm going to keep it until someone else can do the same at a lower price.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#6
I abandoned Fi after a trip to western Europe, where I was billed for 6 GB of usage in a single day on one of my data-only SIM cards, despite that the device the SIM was installed in (a 4G hotspot) registered only 200MB of usage that day.

Support was completely unhelpful, and after escalation reported back that the Fi team has zero visibility into chargebacks from their carrier partners and ergo could not diagnose the cause of the usage discrepancy. The lack of accountability on Fi's part, in addition to various annoyances (handset tendency to select Sprint coverage despite poor performance; handset tendency to override manual carrier selection to the detriment of service reliability; generally worse reliability and coverage than my previous carrier) led me to move back to Verizon. I pay an arm and a leg for my service, but at least it's highly reliable and available.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#7
tl;dr:

* all payments through google use google pay

* poster's husband bought a pixel 3 at the same time there was fraud on their card.

* the pixel 3 shipped even though the payment was reversed because of the fraud

* google shut down his google pay account hard, and that broke google fi, hangouts, access to his phone number, etc.

* google support has been super googley about this (ie foad)

* if you ever have fraud problems with google pay, prepare for all google stuff to break with 0 resolution or help

* as a side note, poster bought a pixel 3 and they have improved their support from the pixel 2 to be more googley. The phone remains basically broken.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#8
post #5

I just traveled to Japan, the Phil, Bulgaria, San Francisco, and Boston without having to change sim cards or worry about my data situation. I'm going to keep it until someone else can do the same at a lower price.

T-Mobile does it for cheaper than Fi, especially if you have a family plan. I've also heard reports that they have better global coverage than Google Fi due to better negotiated deals with the local companies. For example, Fi doesn't work well in Vietnam whereas T-Mobile does.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#10
She's definitely right that the quality of their support has tanked. I've had significant connection issues where people on other carriers have none and their support personnel sent me useless boilerplate questions after I requested support. They then followed up with a multi-page incoherent trouble shooting doc that seemed aimed at their own engineers. One of the worst support experiences I've had, even from Google.

When I first signed up they had fantastic support, now it's worse than what I expect from Comcast.

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