Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Project Fi by Google

fi.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 608 posts

Re: Project Fi by Google

#581

Post by lorenzhs »

unprepare wrote: post #572
paulsecwhatt wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans never paid for speed, that's completely incorrect. There's no tradeoff - mobile phone usage in Europe is simply much, much cheaper because there's not the same quadrupoly that exists in the US (thanks to government intervention and much stricter competitivity laws). That's an interesting attempt to justify the price, but it completely fails to take into account that simply calculating area is nowhere near a…

> Europeans never paid for speed, that's completely incorrect. https://www.dna.fi/liittymat https://kauppa.saunalahti.fi/#!/matkapuhelinliittymat I understand that theres a lot of variety in Europe, but to say that tiers by speed doesn't happen is factually incorrect. >There's no tradeoff I never said there was, I am simply pointing out differences in how the markets are set up and function in these vastly different…

Finland accounts for around 1% of the EU population, that's hardly enough to make claims about "Europe". Speed tiers don't happen in most countries (I can say this with certainty for the UK and Germany).

Re: Project Fi by Google

#582

Post by unprepare »

furyg3 wrote: post #578
unprepare wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are considerably more providers than actual carriers in Germany The same is true in the US, they are called MVNO's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_vi... >What you say about subsidized phones is patently false You are most likely talking about carriers allowing people to finance their phones in europe. Where you can pay an additional 20 euros a month to get the new iphone or whatever.…

It is also throttling in the EU (At least in NL). If I pay for an 'unlimited' data plan it's usually something like 2GB at 4G and then "2G" speeds (64kbps) after that. It's just throttling, as your phone remains connected at "4G". Now many providers have dropped the "unlimited 2G" data claim and just stating the rate limit after you use your high-speed bucket.

Maybe Finland is an exception here, but they are definitely tiered by speed, with no 'buckets' of data - Finland is the only country I've personally purchased an actual plan in, I've only used prepaid plans elsewhere in europe.

https://kauppa.saunalahti.fi/#!/matkapuhelinliittymat https://www.dna.fi/liittymat

Re: Project Fi by Google

#583

Post by AndrewOMartin »

wiremine wrote: post #92

For those who don't want to read the FAQ or find the video incredibly unhelpful [1]: a. It only supports the Nexus 6 out of the gate. b. It automatically switches you to the "fastest" network available. Partners out of the gate are Sprint and T-mobile. Sounds like it prefers Wifi, then 4G LTE, and then degrades down to 3G or 2G. c. Pricing is $20 for unlimited talk (domestic) and text (domestic and international) and…

The video is worth watching just to see how not-worth-watching the video is.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#584

Post by _delirium »

ghshephard wrote: post #553
vitobcn wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa status does not affect your eligibility for payment plans. However, H1B holders are people having recently arrived to the US, and therefore with 0 credit history. This is what impacts the capability to get a postpaid plan, but after a few months to build it up there should be no problem. Personally, I find it ridiculous. Having money in the bank as well as a good salary, and not being able to sign up for a 30$ m…

I can confirm that Visa status is immaterial for payment plans. AT&T will let you sign up for a post-paid without a credit history. I didn't want to provide a SSN (even though I have one), so they let me pay an $800 deposit fee - was worth it to avoid the personal information exposure. The credit card thing is strange - I got a $20,000 one with wells fargo the month after I moved down to the united states in 1996 - o…

Credit cards have tightened up a lot post-2007, both rejecting a lot more applicants, and offering much lower initial limits.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#585

Post by mynameisvlad »

vitobcn wrote: post #546
mynameisvlad wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * As a H1B visa holder I am, according to TMO, not able to get a postpaid plan What? I'm on a TN and I have a postpaid plan and device payment plan. Your visa status doesn't really affect your phone plan eligibility.

Visa status does not affect your eligibility for payment plans. However, H1B holders are people having recently arrived to the US, and therefore with 0 credit history. This is what impacts the capability to get a postpaid plan, but after a few months to build it up there should be no problem. Personally, I find it ridiculous. Having money in the bank as well as a good salary, and not being able to sign up for a 30$ m…

Yeah, exactly, visa status has nothing to do with it. It's all credit history, and it shouldn't be very hard to start credit history. My first card was from my CU, preapproved up to $5k since I was a new resident. If that's not an option, there's secured cards all over the marketplace that can jumpstart credit histories.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#586

Post by _delirium »

cthalupa wrote: post #469
nicpottier wrote: post #65

Whoa, their international rates are crazy good. Same $10/gb across 120 countries. Even limited to 256k/3G, that is still insane. Coverage list here: https://fi.google.com/about/rates/ That's enough of a perk that I'm considering moving to a Nexus 6.

Ouch. I didn't notice that it's limited to 256k/3G. T-Mobile offers unlimited data internationally as part of their simple choice unlimited plan. It's limited to 256k speeds (Which in my experience, I have gotten basically exactly 256k when I've used it in the Netherlands and South Africa). You have the option of buying 4G speed bandwidth for a fairly reasonable price - though still a bit higher than the Google Fi da…

> You have the option of buying 4G speed bandwidth for a fairly reasonable price - though still a bit higher than the Google Fi data rates.

About 10-15x higher, it looks like. :/ Around $100-150/GB, depending on the pass length, e.g. 100MB usable in 24 hours for $15, or 500MB usable in 2 weeks for $50.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#587

Post by samuellb »

unprepare wrote: post #330
pluma wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is $10/GB and $0.2/min normal within the US? I'm not familiar with American (non-roaming) pricing. For comparison: In Germany I have an LTE data plan for my tablet where I pay €24.99 for 7.5GB (~$3.57/GB), the lowest plan being €6.99 for 1GB (~$7.50/GB). Unlimited calls in Germany including 1GB data would cost me €19.99/month (~$21.48) at the same provider and unlimited text in Germany would be an additional €4.99/mo…

A carrier in germany has to build 26 times less towers than a carrier in the US, because germany is more than 26 times smaller than the US. I would think the increased expenditure of 26 times more towers would increase the cost of plans. Europe also never had the culture of carrier subsidized phones, and so were never accustomed to paying more in monthly fees in exchange for low to no cost upgrades of hardware. Tethe…

I live in a country with low population density and mobile is quite cheap here IMO. I have an unlimited data plan from an MVNO for around $10. It's limited to 1 Mbit/s though (but it's 4G), and no phone is included.

When it comes to carrier subsidizing, we actually have both non-subsidized and subsidized, as well as "semi-subsidized" (e.g. pay half price of the phone, but you can't change operator for 2 years).

The downside IMO with mobile in Europe is that we have so many small countries, so occasionally you have to leave your country (=roaming fees) for some reason.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#588

Post by _delirium »

martin_bech wrote: post #556

Just want to hasle you guys with danish pricing For about $28 a month i Get ALL this: 4 hours talk time 5GB 4g data Unlimited text And these services are included FREE HBO Nordic (Hbo NOW) Telmore Music (Think Spotify) TV2 Play (Think mini mini HULU) C More PLAY (More streaming) Mofibo (Netflix for ebooks) Min Bio (Netflix for kidshows) politiken (Newspaper) Ekstra Bladet Plus (Newspaper) Euroman (Magazine think GQ)…

If you never leave the country, mobile prices in Denmark are pretty good. But it's a small country so not very hard to cross a border, e.g. Malmö is only a 30-minute train ride from Copenhagen, so I find myself there often. And for that usage, the Danish providers' prices are quite bad. For example the one you linked, Telmore, charges a ridiculous 1,86 kr per megabyte (i.e. €250/GB) for roaming data in Sweden. I would be very happy to have Google's $10/GB roaming prices, or even something close to it. Instead it seems the only solution in Denmark is to have a whole bag full of SIM cards (Danish, Swedish, German, ...), and swap them every time you cross a border.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#589

Post by pluma »

unprepare wrote: post #573
pluma wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are considerably more providers than actual carriers in Germany. The way frequencies are assigned in Germany probably plays into this, but in a nutshell: many if not most people don't have contracts with the actual network operators (i.e. carriers) but with companies that are merely service providers. There are a lot of spin-off companies offering discounted monthly or pre-paid plans contracts compared to the e…

>There are considerably more providers than actual carriers in Germany The same is true in the US, they are called MVNO's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_vi... >What you say about subsidized phones is patently false You are most likely talking about carriers allowing people to finance their phones in europe. Where you can pay an additional 20 euros a month to get the new iphone or whatever.…

> In the US, when you open a cell phone contract, you get a new phone at a discounted price.

This has definitely been a thing in Germany in the past. In fact, I don't think I've seen ever the "pay $(x+y)/month for 24 months for the plan and phone, then pay only $x/month" model. Usually after 24 months you'd be offered a new phone (again for "free" or a radically "discounted" price). This may have changed since I stopped paying attention to long-term plans but you're wrong in thinking we never had what you have in the US.

> There is no variation of speeds, you either have data or you dont.

We also had hard data caps very early on. We just replaced that with "unlimited" plans with a cap on "high-speed" data at some point.

That said, the low-speed data might as well not be available at all -- most people I know buy extra if they hit their high-speed cap. It's barely sufficient for checking your e-mail.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#590

Post by pluma »

lucaspiller wrote: post #541
pluma wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are considerably more providers than actual carriers in Germany. The way frequencies are assigned in Germany probably plays into this, but in a nutshell: many if not most people don't have contracts with the actual network operators (i.e. carriers) but with companies that are merely service providers. There are a lot of spin-off companies offering discounted monthly or pre-paid plans contracts compared to the e…

Just to clarify the "spin-off" companies are called mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). We have a lot of them in the UK too, but in our case they are usually seperate companies (e.g. the Tesco supermarket has its own mobile brand which runs on the O2 network). Strangely they are usually cheaper than the parent companies too - anyone know how the financials of that work?

In Germany we have supermarket mobile brands, too. They're usually just white-label services provided by other brands (e.g. ALDI Talk is owned by E-Plus, which is an actual carrier).

In fact, E-Plus itself seems to own multiple brands: BASE, Blau, ALDI Talk, Simyo, VIVA, JambaSIM and AY YILDIZ. So they're effectively just discount brands with different target audiences (e.g. AY YILDIZ offers discounted calls to Turkey and is marketed at the large Turkish-speaking minority).

I don't think E-Plus offers any mobile plans under its own brand at all, actually. Their own website links to BASE, which is their "regular" (non-discount) brand. They used to offer plans themselves in the past, though.

Confusingly there's also mobilcom-debitel (again owning several brands) which doesn't seem to be affiliated with any network operator and offers separate plans for the different networks. I think they did own some frequencies at some point and eventually sold them off, so that might at least explain why they exist at all (although I'm not sure how they can compete with the actual operators' own brands).

There are only four actual network operators in Germany: Telekom Deutschland (D1), Vodafone (D2), E-Plus (E1) and Telefónica Germany / O2 (E2). The frequencies for GSM, UMTS and LTE were auctioned off (D1/D2/E1/E2 referring to the original GSM frequencies of the D (GSM-900) and E (DCS-1800) networks).

There's actually a fifth operator on GSM: Deutsche Bahn (German railway). But they're obviously not in the phone business.

Post reply on HN