Project Fi Is Now Google Fi • Hacker News Board

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#131

Post by notatoad » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #58

Majestic121 wrote: post #9

Is 10$/GB a reasonable price in the US? It seems completely out of whack to me. For comparison, I have 20GB + unlimited call/texts for 10e/month, with optional 2e/GB recharges, and that's not even the cheapest available offer

It is a niche price. More expensive for high data users, but less expensive for low data users. Flexibility is really king here, if 9 months of the year you use As to "why is the US/Canada so expensive?" Urban areas subsidies rural cellular. The US is hugely populated on the East and West coasts and a cellphone network that only targeted those population centers would be as cheap or even cheaper than Europe. But most…

In canada, the cheapest phone plans are available in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, our two least-densely-populated provinces.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#132

Post by ggggtez » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #82

alexharrisnyc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only play for what you use. This rewards anyone who mainly stays on wifi. My bill is roughly ~$35 a month with them while everyone I know has bills of 70-120. If you sign up for 2GB but use 1.1GB you only pay $11.

How on earth do people have mobile bills of $120 a month?

Monopolies mostly. The US is big enough that there are really only 2, maybe 3 providers. Everyone else is a reseller.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#133

Post by atombender » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

boromi wrote: post #71

10$/GB is way too expensive Compare: - ATT unlocked pay as you go you get 8GB with ROLLOVER for 40$ a month (autopay) - TMobile for 40$ per month you get 10GB (not sure about rollover) This service seems very niche and only for international travellers.

T-Mobile One is $70/mo with autopay for a single line. It goes down to $40/mo if you have 4 lines.

T-Mobile One is actually unlimited, though they say they will deprioritize your traffic if you use a lot of data. This is still better than some other vendors that start to actually throttle you down to 3G speeds. Also, T-Mobile's tethering is not throttled, unlike some other vendors (e.g. Verizon's "gounlimited").

Last I checked you could still get their cheaper "Simple Choice" prepaid plan for $40/mo, but that's very limited data-wise, something like 2 or 3GB.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#134

Post by caymanjim » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #33

caymanjim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching your cell number to Google Fi doesn't preclude using Google Voice. They're unrelated services, and you can transfer your existing cell number to Fi.

> Switching your cell number to Google Fi doesn't preclude using Google Voice. https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6246240?hl=en "Whichever option you choose, once you activate Google Fi service on your phone, you’ll no longer have Google Voice on the Google Account you use with Google Fi. "

So it does. In fact, I had to make that choice when I signed up, but it took this reminder for the memory to surface. It's a stupid policy.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#135

Post by fhrow4484 » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

Darkstryder wrote: post #34

Majestic121 wrote: post #9

Is 10$/GB a reasonable price in the US? It seems completely out of whack to me. For comparison, I have 20GB + unlimited call/texts for 10e/month, with optional 2e/GB recharges, and that's not even the cheapest available offer

Same question. I live in France, I'm subscribed to the most expensive operator (Orange), and even then I get unlimited call/text and 10 Gigabytes of data (in 4G) for less than 25 € per month (~roughly 28 dollars). These prices look like a joke to me, but it might be a US thing.

France prices are only due to Free mobile. Before they came up with their 20€ a month plan with unlimited everything, the other operators mobile plans had prices similar to the US, 60 to 80 € a month for unlimited everything.

There was rumors of free mobile acquiring T-Mobile sometime last year, that would have been awesome for US consumers...

That same 20€/mo plan gives 25GB of data to use abroad, which makes project fi a less interesting option in France.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#136

Post by dangoor » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

It's cool to see this service graduate, and the addition of limited iPhone support. That said, this year I discovered Xfinity Mobile. We already have Comcast internet at home (which has actually worked quite well for us, despite Comcast's horrible customer service reputation).

Xfinity Mobile costs nothing for talk/text for up to 5 phones + $12 per GB of shared data (or $45 per "unlimited" data per phones). After taxes, my bill has been hovering between $14-26, because I don't use a ton of data on the go.

Oh, and they use Verizon as the underlying carrier, so the coverage has been good.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#137

Post by jdeibele » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

My wife and I are on Xfinity Mobile, which uses Verizon towers. We're on the $12/gig plan, while texts and minutes are free.

Our 3 kids are on Tello, which resells Sprint. They're on the 100 minutes, unlimited texts, 1GB of data plan for $10/month. With taxes, it's almost exactly $11.

Verizon seems to have coverage in remote areas where Sprint doesn't, though sometimes it's been true that Sprint has service and Verizon doesn't. It might be that if we were using Verizon service from Verizon itself instead of through a reseller we'd have service. Given that we pay about $65/month for 5 lines of service, which is what we were paying for 1 line from Verizon, I'm not anxious to test that out.

I've shown the kids how to adjust their phones to just use WiFi for app updates, etc. They're young enough that they're at school or home, not driving themselves around.

Additional GB are $4/month on Tello. They get 2G speed if they hit their 1GB limit, which means they get iMessages, email, etc.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#138

Post by atombender » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

karanke wrote: post #113

kilovoltaire wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fi also wins over T-Mobile for international data, where they give you 4G instead of 3G. (Unless things have changed—when I had T-Mobile, you had to pay extra for international 4G)

This is correct. Out of curiosity, have you required 4G while roaming? For maps, music and Uber 3G worked just fine for me in the UK and India.

I'm in Europe every year, and the T-Mobile 3G speeds are unbearably slow. I switch out my SIM for a (much cheaper!) EU SIM card after arriving.

Note that with T-Mobile's roaming, you're still on the 4G/LTE network. It's just that they throttle you to 3G speeds.

At least it's better than it was 2-3 years ago, when they actually limited your phone to EDGE (!).

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#139

Post by ryanmercer » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

And it's still a steaming pile. I've been a Fi user since September of 2015 and I've had annoyance after annoyance.

- MMS and SMS would send and the receipients would get multiple copies. In one instance someone got more than a dozen instances of a photo I sent

- MMS and SMS would fail to show up regularly for a month

- SMS showed up a full week after the fact in one instance

- Visual voicemail failed to retrieve messages for the better part of a year once

- It took them way too long to get 2fa SMS messages to actually deliver

- People have had multiple years of issues with their phone not ringing, only ringing on hangouts on their computer, not hearing a ring when they call someone

- People have had multiple years of people regularly being unable to hear them, people saying they sound extremely quiet, being unable to hear people, having awesome signal strength but breaking up terribly for the other person

- Piss poor network switching over multiple years, for a solid 2 years you'd have edge and it wouldn't switch to the other one then two networks that had great signal 4g where you were

- Unexplained mystery data usage for multiple people over multiple years

- Terrible customer service for many when something is wrong

- In multiple instances they allowed existing users numbers to be taken by other people

- Countless instances of the 'hidden' number showing up when texting or calling someone

Etc etc. The ONLY reason I'm still a subscriber is they still owe me $336.63 in referral credit from a contest over a year ago, I basically only pay taxes for my service.

Re: Project Fi Is Now Google Fi

#140

Post by dsr_ » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #65

Majestic121 wrote: post #9

Is 10$/GB a reasonable price in the US? It seems completely out of whack to me. For comparison, I have 20GB + unlimited call/texts for 10e/month, with optional 2e/GB recharges, and that's not even the cheapest available offer

Worth noting that specifically for Google Fi * the $10/GB quote is pay as you go - unused data does not magically expire at the end of the billing cycle. While one can probably find a better promotional deal with a US carrier, those unclaimed gigabytes are unlikely to "roll over" to the next month. * the rate is valid for any of Fi's international partners across 170 countries. Other US operators are likely to hit th…

Also worth noting: once you cross 6GB, they stop billing. Basically, your bill is capped at $80 + taxes, so that one month that you end up using 250 GB doesn't cost you $2500, it costs $80.