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I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

onemileatatime.com

11–20 of 464 posts

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#11
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.

Why not T-Mobile?

Fi negotiated better terms for international roaming with TMO than TMO gives its own customers. TMO customers are rate-throttled abroad; Fi is not.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#12
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.

Why not T-Mobile?

2G speeds: https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#14

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.

Are there any downsides to Mint? I thought I was getting a pretty good deal with t-mobile, but damn, $15 a month is pretty tempting.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#15
post #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 p…

This is why consolidation of power is bad. You can't out run their influence and consideration. Competition is great in both tech and state because you have options (barring collusion).

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#16
I'm going through something similar with Lyft. I got a new pixel phone, had to re-setup my account in an airport added my cards, and was unable to hail a ride due to some "oops, there was a problem, try again" error with both the cards I entered. That was 9 months ago. To this day, I've been unable to use Lyft, and I can't get anybody to really look at the issue.

I'm not sure why they don't want to take my money, but for now, I just use Uber. Hopefully they won't decide they hate met too.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#17
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.

Why not T-Mobile?

TMO only gives 2G internationally which, while it doesn’t sound terrible, it ends up being unusable in practice. Your experience may vary though I guess.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#18
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?

For US customers, TMO is the next closest (and is the carrier partner Fi uses for international roaming anyway). The catch is that TMO's ONE service plan throttles 'free' international usage to 2G speeds. Fi on the other hand does not.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#19

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.

I'm perplexed. I can see hating them for other reasons, but expensive would not be the word I associate with Google Fi. I pay $22 including taxes/fees per month, but it's probably not a good carrier for people who watch a lot of video on their phones.

* they're also probably one of the only honest carriers in terms of taxes/fees. My previous carrier had a much higher tax % which I thought was normal, but now I realize it was just a markup disguised as a tax, so they could continue to offer their "$40/month for everything" price point while actually charging $50/month.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#20
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is by far the thing I miss most about Fi, and I'm shocked that no other carrier so far has replicated the feature.
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