US Cellular Now a Part of Project Fi's Network
android.googleblog.com
android.googleblog.com
BUT, I live in the constant fear of Google shutting down the service. In fact I'm slowly finding myself skeptical of adopting new Google products because I'm worried it will go away.
They purchased Grand Central like 10 years ago and never killed it.
Grand Central -> Google Voice -> Project Fi.
My biggest gripe with Fi is that there is no way to check voicemail or handle SMS through the web interface. That was the most useful aspect of Voice for me.
"Once you do this, your text messages and voicemail will sync across Hangouts everywhere, including: Gmail chat, Google+ Page or profile, Chrome desktop app, Android or iOS device, Inbox by Gmail, or the Chrome extension."
- You need a cellular data or Wi-Fi connection to send and receive text messages, even on your Project Fi phone
- You will no longer receive SMS messages in your default SMS app, instead you will receive SMS and voicemail in Hangouts on the web and all of your devices
On the plus side, you almost never pay for data roaming charges. Even when abroad.
https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6079398
However, it's not guaranteed:
"Google Voice’s number availability changes regularly, so even if your number was previously on Google Voice, it can’t always be transferred back. If you’d like to keep this number, we recommend transferring it to another carrier that supports it."
Looking at US Cellular's coverage map (https://www.uscellular.com/coverage-map/coverage-indicator.h...), this news won't benefit the sf bay area, but help users in the northwest, northeast, and midwest.
Who isn't a last mile user?
There are definitely places where this US Cellular is the only option, and this is an awesome addition for those people.
On the other hand, one irony is that even though they still have naming rights for the White Sox' ballpark, they pulled out of the Chicago market and sold what spectrum they had in the area to Sprint.
Edit: Here is an interesting chart of wireless providers in the US [0]; lots more providers w/ 10K-1M subcribers than I realized.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless...
Now that I only visit there a couple times a year I use Tmobile which can roam for voice/text in case of an emergency. It's not worth my money to have coverage when I'm never there anymore.
But the worst is shortcodes and SMSes -- some weird configuration at FI meant that no shortcode texts came or went. I got error messages when I tried to use Magic (the texting startup). I never received 2FA texts while logging to to my bank or to github. I contacted support and they told me it was because those services used an http gateway, and that Fi just did not support that. I later found out that the support person was just wrong, and I escalated up support to a tech who 'reset' specific shortcodes on my account, which means I now can use 2FA for my banks/github, but I had to specifically find the shortcodes they used to get them whitelisted.
Regarding price: I don't use my 3GB, usually under 1GB due to Wifi at home/work/public transport so project fi is nice because it takes the amount I didn't use and refunds me at $10/GB for the next bill.
I get sms's from shortcodes fine and haven't had any issues but maybe its because of the companies (apple, amazon, google, github) are whitelisted from other peoples bug reports.
I haven't run into the auto public wifi-connect issue that much, it seems to work well for public transport and seems to fallback to lte when a login screen is required, but maybe I just haven't experienced as many login page wifi networks.
I think I would go with tmobile if I had multiple people on my bill though because you get discounts for that which isn't there for fi.
It's cheap, but I guess you get what you pay for, we're in a major metro area.
The only downside is having to use a Motorola phone. They seem to always break within 1.5 years of purchase.
Note that this plan might not be available anymore.. not sure really, but i know i often get flack for being on this plan from tmo. It clearly isn't making them enough money, but my god, i love it.
Oh, question for you if you don't mind: Since you were on Tmo, can you compare the reception/coverage for Fi vs Tmo? In theory Fi would have better reception due to more networks, but i'm not really sure how much Tmo and Sprint differ in network size/locations. Thoughts?
I'm in USA-WA and the hills/mountains really cause reception issues. So the reception coverage is important to me. (Nothing beats Verizon, unfortunately)
If they gave me $5 or $10/m for reduced talk, i'd be in heaven
Had to go to prepaid plans > Individual plan > Talk and text only Link underneath (even though the plan is the opposite, good labeling).
(Screengrab of how I got to it in case they're doing cookie/referer checks and the direct url doesn't work: http://paste.click/VSgPVD )
And may I ask which iPhone you have? I have an iPhone 5.
Someone using, say, 100GB on any network operator is not using $1000 worth of electricity / tower uptime costs / etc. They might, in the most ludicrously expensive regulatory environments, be costing a hundredth that.
Except you don't have worldwide roaming included in your plan, which you have to pay extra for.
That's a reason why I'm not changing from Fi. Also the fact that data I don't use is reimbursed.
> PLUS use your monthly 4G LTE data in Mexico and Canada like in the U.S., at no extra charge
It doesn't seem to be worldwide...
If you're going to switch - if you don't mind, email me at j(at)fej(punto)io so I can send you my referral information. Disclosure: I would make $80 in T-Mobile stock, and currently have a share of the company. Of course, I don't want to pressure you at all, and even if you switch you don't have to credit me.
This is their new referral program which you might have heard about recently.
Federal Universal Service Fund, State Telecom Excise, County Telecom Excise, MCTD Surcharge, Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee, State & Local Sales Tax, Public Safety Communications Surcharge, County 911
That's $10+/mo of pure BS for a single line. Would love to hear from Google Fi users if they also do this, if not I'll probably switch.
Taxes & government surcharges State 911 Tax $0.08 Telecomm Relay Systems Surcharge $0.06 California Teleconnect Fund Charge $0.13 California High Cost Fund Surcharge $0.04 California Advanced Services Fund Charge $0.06 Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge $0.67
Other fees PUC Fee $0.03 Federal Universal Service Fund $1.29 Federal Regulatory Assessment Fee $0.12
Actually, I recently took advantage of the Fi discount on a Nexus 5x ($250 @ 32 GB), but after some days dinking with it on Fi, I swapped in my Verizon SIM as planned, to have Verizon service with Nexus quality/timely system updates. (Needed an additional reboot for LTE to kick in, but since then -- as reported in numerous places -- it has worked just fine.)
But, I'm increasingly unhappy with Verizon Wireless.
Next up would be to see whether Google Fi's adverstised real/actual/person support is for real and helpful, and to ask them whether, hey, after all, I'd like to port my Verizon number to a Fi SIM / service and use that instead of the Fi SIM that's currently idle.
(I wanted to try it before committing.)
The other is to see whether, now that I'm out from under my 2 year phone "contract" with Verizon, I can coerce better pricing/capacity out of them.
In any event, I will NEVER again use a phone that is dependent upon Verizon for updates. So, that means Apple, or my unofficial/"not supported" Nexus, or...
P.S. If anyone from Google happens by, "pinch to zoom out" on the Nexus 5x is horrible -- the camera app dies about 50% of the time when I use this feature on it. PLEASE for the love of deity fix this! (Your error reporting systems should have about a bazillion and a half incident reports from one particular device ID. Stock Nexus 5x with only a few big-name apps installed.)
I'm a google fi customer and requested support. For me, the support was fantastic. They were very helpful and did their best to make sure everything was handled. Sample size of 4-8 requests, though, so YMMV.
If you are currently paying the contract rate, you should be able to get ~20/month off.
If anyone is in an area where Sprint is decent, I suggest trying Ringplus. You can use an old phone to test it. In my case, I gave a neighbor who did not have a cellphone an old phone and set it up for him on Ring plus. I heard a few months later that the coverage was good, so I switched and found that it is indeed better than it was in 2014. Consequently, I can put the money saved from not paying a monthly fee into something tangible, like equipment.
It would be nice if Google could offer a similiar service for everyone, but until either then or Ringplus decides to stop providing free service, I am sticking with Ringplus. There is no point in paying for a service that a competitor offers for free.
As far as phone expenses go, I think I'm still doing pretty well though.
if I switch to Project Fi am I going to be expected to signup and use all of these things? As in, is it significantly cheaper because now I'm the product? Or am I getting a legitimate Android handset I can root and go about my way like I would with any other carrier?
(As long as that handset is a Nexus 5x, Nexus 6, or Nexus 6P, because those are the only phones that work with Google Fi right now.)
At least its cheap, although I am still grandfathered into my parents' family plan for around $20/month. I think an equivalent individual plan from ATT or Verizon in this area would run over $100, which would be ridiculous for the 3-4 phone calls a month I make.
It differs in handling of WiFi calling in that "it actually works really well"[1]. Calls started on WiFi switch (mostly) seamlessly to cellular when you go out of range or the call quality dives. It attaches to some public access points automatically (with a little "key" icon at the top when it does so).
On the cellular front, it uses T-Mo and Sprint (and, now US Cellular). Their networks are quite different[2] and it is able to bounce between them and does so in a manner that maximizes 4G and overall coverage. There were dead zones for me on T-Mo that have perfect coverage on Project Fi.
[1] I had T-Mo with WiFi calling previously and even at the time that I left it barely worked. I'd not receive calls when attached to one of my access points (or drop them if my phone jumped over to it) and call hand-off to cellular never worked for me. It always works on Fi and my phone won't even try to use the other AP for calling (which it figured out on its own).
[2] I believe their 4G technology is similar enough, but below that its CDMA for Sprint and GSM for T-Mobile, I believe. My information may be out of date, though. When I signed up there weren't any MVNOs that used those two networks.
It isn't dead yet, and I can't really justify the cost.
My parents have a home "up north" (the thumb area of Michigan) and I've had service with both T-Mo and Verizon since I've been spending a lot of time up there. Coverage from VZW/T-Mo, despite being vastly different networks, suffered from a large dead spot in Fort Gratiot and coverage on the property was also terrible (low lying, beach front property results in a very obstructed situation). I switched to T-Mo because I'd pick up Canadian towers on the property with Verizon which would cause me billing problems[1].
The statements they're making about choosing the best provider from multiple providers is not marketing. I get 4G coverage all the way up to through the most rural areas and can pull a signal on the property (2G, sometimes Canada, but it's there if I need it). T-Mobile and Sprint's network is different enough that no other MVNOs that I know of support both. Because Project Fi does, I get excellent coverage -- where T-Mo lacked, at least in the areas I travel, Sprint has a great signal and my 4G performance is so consistent that I haven't had occasion to even look to see if I'm in LTE or not (that would only happen when the music would stop or a browsing session would die -- "oh, I'm 2G/3G, no wonder!").
Nobody in my family has reliable service except for my wife and I (she's on Fi, now, too). The Wi-Fi features work seamlessly and are much more intelligent than I experienced on T-Mo. Due to one of my APs being wonky at home, Project Fi automatically uses 4G for calls when I'm attached to it. When I'm connected to my properly functioning AP, it uses WiFi (internet works on both, but no VoIP service from mobile phones has ever worked on the one). With T-Mo, I had to turn WiFi calling off because I'd just stop being able to make/take calls when connected to the broken router. It hands off calls without issue, as well (there's a brief period where audio is dead when this happens but I usually don't notice it).
It's a well thought out service and the pricing was perfect for me. I'm on WiFi 99% of the time and my mobile data is often below 1G/mo, however, with the work I do I can have a month or two a year where my data goes well beyond 6GB, so I always kept my plan at that level and just donated that money to T-Mo/Verizon. The prices aren't the lowest in the area when pre-paid offerings are included, but with the service being what it is, I'd pay more for this kind of reliability.
[1] T-Mo doesn't charge for Canadian data or texts and allowed WiFi calling (I'm not sure if Verizon does, yet, or not) so this resolved the problem for me. Coverage wasn't as good, especially a few years ago with 4G, but it was good enough.