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Project Fi by Google

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Re: Project Fi by Google

#501

Post by FireBeyond »

yellowapple wrote: post #273
codezero wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best guess is that these carriers regret offering unlimited data.

If they regret offering it, then they'd get rid of it like AT&T did. No, T-Mobile and Sprint embrace it. It's what differentiates them from their competitors. They know that the claims of "oh no, unlimited data would cause congestion issues!!!!11one" were a poor excuse even a decade ago, let alone in the present day, and are thus unafraid to offer customers something that doesn't result in total shafting. AT&T and Ve…

"We'll give you a couple gigs of high-speed data; if you go over that, we'll just throttle you to 2G speeds without charging overages or any such nonsense. If you want more high-speed, pay for more of it or go with our actual unlimited plan."

... which slows you to 2G speeds after 5GB, instead.

I want to like T-mo, I've been a customer in the past until coverage made me give them up, but that point above is somewhat an important omission.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#502

Post by laurentoget »

Reading through the comments here it seems pretty sad that between international differences and baroque pricing schemes, nobody knows with certainty how much they are paying for their connectivity, or whether $10/GB is a good price or not. You would think considering the size of this market there would be some mechanism to establish a fair price by now.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#503

Post by shkkmo »

fragmede wrote: post #387
nevir wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Edit: Looks like the Sony Z3C is a (and the only?) contender! --- But, I've also given up on that front. The last phone that was (barely) usable one-handed for me was the original Moto X. At this point, there is literally not a single phone on the market that (that I can find): * Runs a recent version of Android (or iOS) * Is * Has a recent/"fast" CPU/GPU So, fuck it, time to give in and go with a phablet.

A height of less than 5 inches limits you to the Motorola Droid Mini, Moto E or the recently released LG Joy. (Those 3 run Lollipop and are from 2013 and later.) Increasing height to 5.1 inches (well, 130mm), gsmarena.com shows almost a dozen phones that suit your wishes. (Personally, I'm still not happy about having to give up on having a hardware QWERTY keyboards on my phone :/ )

+1 for hardware keyboards. In many ways I miss my clunky G1.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#504

Post by schneidmaster »

luu wrote: post #46

Who handles support for this? Is it Google, or one of the carriers that Google's using? Who do you talk to if the handoff between carriers doesn't quite work? I've skimmed the FAQ and I didn't see that listed in there. For context, I use Google Voice, and while it's really nice in a lot of ways, it has some unfortunate bugs that have persisted for years that it seems impossible to get support for. I no longer uncondi…

Obviously I understand your trepidation regarding Google's support, and the proof will be in the proverbial pudding, but they at least claim they'll be providing better support than for most of their other products:

LIVE SUPPORT AVAILABLE AROUND THE CLOCK If you need help, our support team is in the US and available all day, every day. Give us a call, and don't be surprised when you connect right away to a Fi Expert without pressing 0.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#505

Post by bluedino »

yellowapple wrote: post #240
mahouse wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just say "Yes", Google. Just say fucking "Yes". It's not that fucking hard to say fucking "Yes". Do you really need a "yes" there? I think it is pretty normal to have a stupid PR response there -- of course the answer is "yes". There is no other way.

My point is that Google, of all companies, should be grown-up-enough to be able to resist the temptation to feed its users PR non-answers. Google's supposed to be bucking trends, "Do[ing] No Evil(TM)", etc.; they've set a higher standard and they're not meeting it.

That Google is long gone.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#506

Post by salem »

mmanfrin wrote: post #279
smacktoward wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't get is, what's in this for Sprint and T-Mobile? Currently a user of their network is a customer they "own" -- they deal with that customer directly. Now they have Google sitting between them and the user, which effectively commoditizes their service; Google could switch them out for another network down the road without the user ever knowing or caring. That's great for Google, and probably also great for…

Both Sprint and T-Mobile are major providers to MVNO networks -- a significant amount of business they generate comes from carriers who use Sprint/TMo's networks, but handle the customer relations/sales/billing themselves. To Sprint and T-Mobile, Google is just another MVNO carrier.

No, the big difference here is that Google's MVNO is dynamically switching between multiple providers.

Most MVNOs are just resellers of a single network. They may migrate users between networks as contracts expire, but dynamically balancing between multiple networks is less common. I'm sure many people have thought of this idea before (Apple included) but actually getting multiple carriers to agree to a deal is what's interesting about this.

It's also probable only recently feasible with a mass market phone that can handle all the difference frequencies (and potentially different network types) involved.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#507

Post by shkkmo »

abandonliberty wrote: post #430
Vraxx wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a reasonable assumption to me. I doubt they pay a flat rate to all providers they borrow from with Google charging by the 100 MB.

Google consistently tries to increase competition and make both hardware and network owners into a commodity. Meanwhile hardware and network owners madly fight to stay relevant, like the aggressive customization of Samsung's android Touchwiz or the various telecoms lobbying against net neutrality.

I don't think that t-mobile and sprint are opposed to commoditization. The expansion of the commoditization of mobile access gives them new ways to compete against at&t and verizon.

The era of multi-year contracts and heavy device subsidies has primarily helped those with large market share maintain it. T-mobile in particular has been pushing to change how the market works and bring an end to some of the ways that customers have been locked in to carriers. I wouldn't be to surprised to seem them support further commoditization.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#508

Post by henrikg »

laurencerowe wrote: post #220
smacktoward wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't get is, what's in this for Sprint and T-Mobile? Currently a user of their network is a customer they "own" -- they deal with that customer directly. Now they have Google sitting between them and the user, which effectively commoditizes their service; Google could switch them out for another network down the road without the user ever knowing or caring. That's great for Google, and probably also great for…

Google is charging a significant markup over T-Mobile's existing rates ($30/month for 5Gb vs $70/month through Gooogle.) So Fi is really only interesting for people doing significant international roaming.

I've had TMO in the past, and the Google plan is attractive to me for a couple of reasons

* T-Mobile customer service is inconsistent in messaging on the phone, via Facebook, stores

* As a H1B visa holder I am, according to TMO, not able to get a postpaid plan

* Prepaid plan does not work outside of the US

* Prepaid plan has issues receiving short codes from Uber/Bank of America and possibly others - I've spent 8+ hours trying to get it resolved and just ended up giving up.

* I currently use Cricket, due to the 20GB max, but the network is so incredibly slow that it's almost pointless. In NYC I often get at most 100kb/s downstream, when on LTE; that's just no good.

* Spam calls to my Cricket number, and they are unable to do anything about the multiple calls I receive a day

* I use Google Voice already, and it's incredible - except for international texting which they have crappy support for.

* Google Voice has issues with short codes, kinda like TMO prepaid.

Assuming the latter two has been solved with Project Fi + I can get proper network speeds + they filter out spam + automatic transcripts of voicemails (latter two being Google Voice features), then I'm a fan. Can't wait to get it for my Nexus 6.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#509

Post by salem »

What I'm curious about is the privacy policy. With the automatic VPN usage on wifi and the potential network architecture of the MVNO, Google could be in the path of all your cell phone data traffic. The opportunity to learn more about you for advertising purposes is very very high.

Re: Project Fi by Google

#510

Post by shkkmo »

yellowapple wrote: post #276
modeless wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Clogging the network" would be solved by carriers actually bothering to invest in their networks This is exactly my point. With unlimited data plans, carriers have little incentive to upgrade their networks. It increases costs without directly increasing revenue. With pay-per-GB, the incentive is clear: upgrading the network increases usage which directly increases revenue.

> It increases costs without directly increasing revenue. Attracting more customers because you offer unlimited data and other carriers don't sounds like a pretty-damn-direct increase of revenue to me. See also: how T-Mobile makes money off me and millions of others.

The quote is talking about upgrading the network increasing costs without directly increasing revenue.
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