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Comment by wiremine | Hacker News Reader

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 wi-fi tethering. Data is $10 per Gig. (Plus taxes, etc.) No support for unlimited data. they also refund you all the unlimited data at the end of the month.

d. No annual contract required.

e. Supports calls over wi-fi.

Coverage map here: https://fi.google.com/coverage

[1] Not even sure why they made a video, it doesn't explain a thing...

Edit: clarified domestic talk pricing, and refunding data.

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The FAQ isn't particularly helpful, considering that instead of directly answering the FAQs, Google just kind of weasels its way around them.

For example: "Q: Does moving between networks affect my battery life? A: We like full batteries too. Our software is optimized to not put extra strain on your battery by only moving you between networks when absolutely necessary."

Just say "Yes", Google. Just say fucking "Yes". It's not that fucking hard to say fucking "Yes".

Another example: "Q: When will Project Fi support other smartphones? A: The Nexus 6 is the first smartphone that supports Project Fi's network of networks. During Project Fi's Early Access Program we plan to only support the Nexus 6."

That doesn't answer the question at all. The question asks "when", and Google just resorts to repeating the same exact information that prompted the question in the first place.

Google does understand the point of FAQs, right? To answer common questions about things? Or are they too busy half-assing their Fiber rollout and building self-driving cars to stop and notice how much they suck at giving straight answers to even the questions that they fucking wrote?

> 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.

Then why have it on the FAQ?

Again, for PR reasons.

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.

C'mon, "Do[ing] No Evil(TM)" is itself a PR non-answer to explain why we shouldn't be worried about their dangerous centralization of data and infrastructure.

At Microsoft (and I'm sure at Google), there was an internal "rude FAQ" that was full of these answers. I felt it a shame we couldn't just publish that, instead.

That Google is long gone.

Well the real question is "Does it increase radio power usage more than a couple percent?", not whether it literally takes a single joule.

Also the answer could be no! Transferring to a better connection can let you run the radio at lower power.

Have a Snickers.

Why?

"You're not you when you're hungry"

eats a Snickers

Nobody likes a Diva

Everything you said is correct, I just want to make two tiny clarifications:

- It is unlimited talk (domestic) and unlimited text (domestic and international). International talk costs extra.

What was said in your post was accurate, but the way it was worded could confuse people into believing that it is unlimited international talk.

The pricing is a little more nuanced than you said.

- It is $20 (talk/text) and then $10 per gig of data. However they refund you all unused data at the end of the month. So if you buy 1 gig of data for $10 and only use 0.5 gig, they credit back $5.

Which is an important distinction as that is their USP: cost savings by refunding unused data.

The "refund" language is confusing for the purposes of advertising, and I wouldn't bother repeating it. It's by-the-gig pricing, full stop. They just charge you for data you use, at a quite competitive price.

I don't think that that's correct. The plan page basically says that it's by-the-100MB pricing. https://fi.google.com/about/plan/

I'm not sure if that's true. Their line about refunding unused data says "you’ll get your unused data credited in dollars and cents" which implies that it may be as fine grained as by the 1MB pricing (if they are actually refunding cents as well)

I don't really understand why they presented it that way, by-the-gig (or 100MB) sounds much more appealing than rollover data. Maybe it's some liability or insurance thing? Cause you basically have to fork over a bunch of money for the first month before the refunds roll over.

(never mind, someone else responded to this question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9422621)

$10/G is the same price as AT&T. Is there another one that is more expensive?

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 the user, but not so great for the individual cell providers.

Presumably Google is paying them something to compensate for that, but it still seems dumb -- accepting a little money today at the cost of cutting your own throat in the long term. But then there aren't many providers in the US that aren't dumb, so maybe the long-term threat has just been completely missed by them? Who knows...

They are probably getting excess capacity bought by Google, it's not a bad idea to take easy guaranteed revenue.

My other theory is that they are giving Google a taste of the business that will later lead to Google buying T-Mobile or Sprint outright.

They already do that (allow a 3rd party to resell over their infrastructure) with Ting. They are in a commodity biz.

and virgin mobile and boost (both of which they own) plus a dozen other MVNO cell companies.

I'm tempted to get short Tucows on this, but they've been so awesome that I don't think I'd leave for Google's price point.

It brings the costs of on-boarding, support and sales to 0. At least, from the customer facing perspective. Presumably, they also believe this will bring them a net increase in 'paying users', with larger customer defections coming from the big players (Verizon and AT&T) rather than their own customer base.

I could see how it could be an attractive revenue stream.

That was a question I had: where's the money for Google? Are they in this to force competition only, or do they see this as a viable business model?

For those in the know: how much would they get per subscriber, assuming $20 for the "basics" as they call it, and $10 per Gig for data?

This is likely difficult to calculate, given they are using both T-Mobile _and_ Sprint, and they refund unused data. But I'd be curious nevertheless...

They don't need to make money; they earn more money off of advertisements served.

This plan enables people to be 'more online' while mobile, even in other countries.

Google has always been trying to lower the barriers to the internet (slow javascript -> Chrome (v8 engine), the internet baloons in africa, and now a global cellular/mobile internet service at decent rates).

But no one clicks on ads on mobile.

People consume Google Maps on mobile. Maps is much more the global yellow pages of the 21st century than targeted banner ads or even web search could ever be. I don't know how much Google has started monetizing Maps yet, but the market potential is huge: "OK Google take me to an Italian restaurant" is still much more likely to end with money changing hands than "OK Google take me to a website that talks about pizza". I even think that the primary motivation for creating Android was to secure that spot. Fi would fit very well into that strategy, because Maps gets more powerful when the user is far from home. Therefore, unacceptable international data charges are disproportionally bad for Maps. If fi starts a race to the bottom for data roaming prices, Maps will benefit a lot.

This just happened in Belgium. One of the networks was reselling through the biggest internet and tv provider. It seemed like a sweet deal, since they were getting most of the revenue and had almost none of the support costs. Now the internet provider has bought a competing wireless network, and will move their customers over to that one instead, ending the contract. The original network provider is going to have some tough financial times ahead because they're seeing 20% of their customers walk out the door all at once.

> What I don't get is, what's in this for Sprint and T-Mobile?

Both Sprint and T-Mobile have to build physical infrasture, both to offer basic services (e.g. 3G, talk/text) but to also compete (4G, LTE, etc). Building infrastructure is really expensive. They need land, licences, power, and a network to connect that tower to (assuming it isn't just a relay).

So both networks have this HUGE sunk cost. In an ideal world they would be able to recruit enough users to consume each tower's capacity by 100% at peak. But because they're competing against other networks (with more users) and have to look competitive, they've over-built their network both in scope (e.g. servicing areas with few users) and capacity.

If Sprint and T-Mobile were confident that they could recruit enough users to fill their network they likely wouldn't agree to this deal. Just as AT&T and Verizon haven't. However the likely reality is that both Sprint and T-Mobile are well over capacity in certain areas and every penny that Google can bring in by stealing uses from the big two is just further helps Sprint and T-mobile, even if they just use it to further build out their respective networks.

Additionally: You could frame this as an "illusion of choice." You have Walmart/Target Cellular (Straight Talk/Brightspot) on the low end, T-Mobile themselves in the middle, and Google's Project Fi offering a niche service, but in reality they're all just T-Mobile aimed at a different user base. In all three cases T-Mobile grows, their network grows, and they could kick these brands off any time the contract is up for renew.

PS - T-Mobile actually host just under 30(!) different cellular providers in the US[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_v...

Not only that, but because it switches to the faster provider, and assuming that Project Fi pays out to providers based on percentage of service used, it's much more in Tmo/Sprint's best interests to upgrade their service - considering the switch to their competitor is automatic and based on quality.

That's a pretty big assumption.

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.

Even then a good strategy for the networks would be to build capacity on crowded areas where infrastructure is cheap and neglect all other areas for the second carrier.

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.

Upgrading their service is expensive. T-Mobile upgrades, then Sprint has to upgrade to compete, then T-Mobile has to upgrade again, then Sprint...

Instead what's going to happen, T-Mobile and Sprint both agree to offer the same performance, or focus on different regions.

It's like selling slices of pizza on the street. If you're smart, you and your competitor agree to sell at $5/slice. If you drop to $4, sure you'll get more customers for a short period of time, but then your competitor drops to $4, and now you both just cut 20% off your revenue for no reason.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

Technically, the pizza idea won't work, because more people will enter the market and compete on price. Doesn't apply for telecom since it's all monopolized and new competitors can't enter.

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.

T-Mobile gives you free 128kb/s international data though.

Except T-Mobile already has unlimited international roaming (text/data) on their postpaid plans. (Admittedly, the special $30/month plan costs less than the postpaid plans.)

T-mobile does not have unlimited calls for that plan. It is $30 per month — Unlimited web and text with 100 minutes talk 100 minutes talk | Unlimited text | First 5GB at up to 4G speeds

Or people whose data usage is substantially below the point where typical carrier plans per-GB rates are optimal.

Where did you get your numbers?

T-Mobile site says 1 GB of 4G data with unlimited talk and text for $50 a month.

5 gigs of 4G data is $70

http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/individual.html

I can confirm, that's the exact plan I have.

There are some cheaper pay-as-you-go plans, but those are actually Walmart's plans using T-Mobile's towers—similar to what Google is doing here.

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

If you scroll down, there's:

$30 per month — Unlimited web and text with 100 minutes talk 100 minutes talk | Unlimited text | First 5GB at up to 4G speeds

I'm considering switch from that plan to Google Fi for Canada data.

No tethering with that plan.

Tethering works for me.

If you install the T-mobile app which lets you know your monthly usage, it claims I have 100 megabytes of tethering data. I rather quickly uninstalled it since it's a pain, but some limited tethering does seem to work for me -- I've only used it occasionally to SSH/mosh, but after a while it does an http redirect to a "No tethering for you!" screen; I assume after that 100mb cap is reached (though I haven't checked)

I just got a T-mobile plan, the one you're referring to, an hour ago, and you are right, I paid $50 for the plan (plus $15 for the card).

Yeah but as a T-Mobile customer myself, that plan which is only available if you purchase the SIM card online or through Walmart, isn't sufficient for my needs. As much as I like being able to call via the Hangouts Dialer WiFi calling is still not of very good quality.

I have this plan too, but pay $15 ($45 total for 5gb) so I can tether to the iPhone.

That's after a $50 charge for unlimited calls and texts, and unlimited edge data. Not that it's a trivial service, but I would save about ~$30-40 a month with no service loss. Probably a service gain, especially if they get AT&T or even a certain CDMA service provider (I can dream).

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.

TMO prepaid and TMO MVNOs now have full short code access.

-citation: I confounded and run a U.S. MVNO.

I think the text issues are due to Google Voice and not T-Mo (I have the GVoice+T-Mo unlimited data combo, and I think I only have short code issues with the GVoice number).

> * 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$ monthly plan; or applying for a credit card and getting either rejected or one with a 200$ credit limit.

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 - on a $50,000 salary working desktop support. I was quite honestly a little shocked - but just went with it.

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

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.

Or interesting for people who need more than 100 minutes for voice calls (that $30 plan is only 100 minutes voice), who want whatever benefit there is for additional Sprint coverage, or Wi-fi Calling usage with a Nexus 6.

With 4G, you need as much spectrum as possible to provide fast service. Sprint and T Mobile are losing the 4G race pretty hard. Regulators won't let them merge, so this is kind of a way for them to team up. Just my speculation.

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.

If I'm not mistaken, when google bid on the wireless spectrum in 2008, they did so in such a way that extra conditions had to be met by the winner of the auction [1]. One of these conditions is 'Open networks: Third parties (like internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee's wireless network.' They could be taking advantage of this clause to offer the Google Fi service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_spe...

Separation of concerns?

Let ye olde business do the infrastructure, and Google - data mining.

Since there is the Nexus 6 requirement acting as a throttle, it allows them to carry out a controlled experiment on a very small sample for this business model. It also gives them some visiblity for Google's future plans, as to be more prepared for them.

Sprint and T-Mobile already have thriving businesses in reselling their bandwidth through mobile virtual network operators (MVNO's, see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operat...). You've probably heard of some of them, like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. This is because they have excess capacity that they can't sell through their own sales channels.

Boost and Virgin are both owned by sprint, FYI.

Relevance? Verizon and AT&T are killing them.

"...it still seems dumb -- accepting a little money today at the cost of cutting your own throat in the long term. But then there aren't many providers in the US that aren't dumb"

Well, if history proves anything is that most of their investors will prefer an immediate cash-in that will raise the results and the stock price, over the long-term sustainability of the company.

Ahhh soooo annoying that it requires a Nexus 6. This sounds so awesome but I do not want a 6" phone. I'm hoping the next Nexus phone will have a smaller variant (and it will undoubtedly support Project Fi)

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 <= 5" tall

* Has a recent/"fast" CPU/GPU

So, fuck it, time to give in and go with a phablet.

...The iPhone 6 is 4.7" and has the best processor on the market.

4.7" is the screen diagonal. The total height, including the top and bottom border is listed as 5.44". This is according to Apple. http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/specs/

This seems unlikely, as cell phones are generally rectangular and have flat screens.

EDIT: maybe you could try drawing a screen with a 5.44" height and 4.7" diagonal. Euclid will not be your friend.

I think you and the parent are confusing the display size with phone size. The phone height is >5 inches. The display is 4.7 inches diagonally. The device size diagonally will be more than device height.

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.

Sony Z3 Compact. Is 5.01 inches tall, but your original Moto X was 5.09 and you seemed to like it fine. Fast/recent specs. Runs a recent version of Android.

Nice! Not sure how I missed that one, maybe it's the way to go...

Also waterproof! It's a pretty cool feeling to rinse your phone under the tap the first time you do it.

Another vote for the Sony Z3C. I'm an avowed Sony hater, but I'm liking mine.

I'm really hoping for a Nexus 5 2015. It's the best phone, for me, I've encountered including this generation of phones. Otherwise I'm probably going to have to get a Moto G 2nd gen if they come out with the LTE edition.

It's just the first phone they support due to the radio support. I expect they will have other phones later in the year.

Probably that Nexus 5 reboot people are talking about.

Just as a point of reference, this is about on par with AT&T family share plans - I pay $145 a month for 3 iphones, unlimited text and talk with 10 gigs shared data. With taxes and fees it comes out to right around $160 (which would be the same here if I used all 10 gigs). The down side is that I'm not refunded for any unused data, so I pay that every month. But we use a good chunk of it every month, so this wouldn't be a big savings for me.

I also use an AT&T share plan and they recently started rolling over unused data. So while I'm not getting money back I feel like I'm at least accruing something when I don't get close to my max.

Depending on your plan they might be doing the same for you now too?

> accruing

I think AT&T only rolls over data to the next month, so you aren't actually accruing anything. Unlike T-Mobile, who I believe roll over data for up to 12 months.

Wait really? The email I got from them made it sound like it would roll over forever. I'm gonna have to go read the fine print now. That's a big bummer if you are correct.

Yeah it is only month to month (previous month's unused rolls over to the next month only).

Well that's a bummer. Oh well.

They roll it over but it is the last used and is only rolled over a single month.

Month 1: Get 10 Use 5 = 5 rolled over.

Month 2: Get 10 Rollover 5 Use 5 (of the 10) Lose 5 (already rolled over) = 5 rolled over.

Month 3: Get 10 Rollover 5 Use 5 (of the 10) Lose 5 (already rolled over) = 5 rolled over.

Month 4: Get 10 Rollover 5 Use 5 (of the 10) Lose 5 (already rolled over) = 5 rolled over.

By Month 5, you would think you would have 30 (10 + 5 rolled over from each month) but you only get 15.

AT&T: We'll always find a way to fuck you.

Wow are those smartphones? Somehow I'm paying $100/mo for just my iPhone, 3 gigs of data and unlimited text.

The first phone on a plan costs the same as what you're paying; it's adding phones that's cheap.

With T-mobile I pay $100 (+ ~$8 tax/fees) for 2 smartphones with unlimited everything (data is never cut off or throttled as well). Look into a new plan!

I've been paying $80 + 2 x $10 for 3GB of high-speed data each. After reading this comment, I switched over to unlimited for the same price. Thanks!

Do you have the AT&T family share plan or the family VALUE share plan? Because those figures sound a lot more like the value share plan.

PS - The difference is that with the value plan, phones are no longer "free." You have to have a separate credit line (called: "AT&T Next"). So a phone might be $30/month for 30 months.

I think that is a moot point since you would have to pay the full price of your phone with the Google Fi plan anyway. It seems like the AT&T Next plans are actually a credit line with 0% interest as well; if you multiply out the costs, it's normally within $2-3 of the full cost of the phone anyway (i.e. AT&T isn't profiting off of your phone subsidy). For the sake of apples to apples comparisons, it seems like the Google plan is not a great value add...yet.

It isn't a moot point. Many people reading might assume that that price includes a largely subsidised phone, since that is what people are used to with the big two.

All I am saying is, AT&T's offer no longer does, so it is close to what Google/T-Mobile are doing.

I'm on the "Mobile Share Value 10GB With Rollover Data" - I own all 3 iPhones outright though, so maybe that's why I'm not getting hit for an additional $30 for the phones? Good to know!

On the same plan we've got 5 people at the same price. There's a way to remove subsidized phones from the plan which saved close to 20 dollars per line for us. The downside is flag ships now cost 600, and so we all use either something old and used or a moto g.

old? I bought an LG G3 like two months ago for 350 bucks, came with a case, 64GB sd card, and all the original packaging and stuff. Was also in mint contition (the back of the case was scratched up a bit, but i dont really care for cases)

Anecdotal i gues, but if you look around its quite easy to find new flagship phones for very cheap, especially right around when the new iphones come out and people are clamoring to trade up

Can't really call 350 bucks cheap. But yeah that's why used and hand me down devices are quite common in our family. (We have like three S3s that were all bought by someone else on contract and given to us free by someone upgrading.)

Moto G is my personal preference though I bump into the limitations of that a lot.

Likewise, I pay right at $200/mo for 3 subsidized smartphones with 10GB of shared data and unlimited text/talk on Verizon. We do typically go through 8-9GB of usage monthly too, so it's not much wasted. Fi would be like $15/mo/phone less expensive + that marginal data rebate except... I can get LTE on Verizon nearly everywhere, unlike with T-Mobile and Sprint (especially once you leave metro areas out west) and my phones are subsidized. If I want to subsidize a Nexus 6 through Fi, it's now an additional $27.04/month/phone, or for the 3 of us, $30 more expensive every month than Verizon.

This whole thing makes no sense for me. I go through Cricket Wireless, which is $40/mo for unlimited minutes and 2.5GB of high-speed data (then throttled to pretty much useless). I would say is equal to their plan that has 2GB. I actually only pay $35/mo due to auto-pay, so even cheaper than their $40 and I get more data.

I don't see their offering as competitive at all.

edit: just saw the "plus taxes and fees" of which there is none for me. So, I pay even less now.

I pay $110 per month for 2 iPhones and unlimited talk, text, and data on T-Mobile. I really don't know why anyone wouldn't go with T-Mobile. They don't have contracts, overage fees and have the only unlimited data plan on the market (or at least among the big players).

I could see coverage being an issue if you're in the country but that's not going to be an issue for too much longer.

sprint also has an unlimited plan fwiw.

I have Sprint and I live in Alameda Ca - and work in SOMA in SF - It is hands down the worst cellular carrier in the bay area with respect to LTE coverage and speed:

1. They have been claiming they are building new towers for the last THREE years. 2. No coverage AT ALL in any bart tunnel 3. No coverage fully across the bay bridge 4. Spotty coverage in SOMA 5. Google hangouts is utterly useless on mobile 6. three huge dead zones on 880 between Oakland and Menlo park, no coverage across dumbarton, etc.

I wish companies would stop partnering with them for services like this.

I carry a verizon MIFI with me everywhere for work (ops) and I turn it on every time I get on bart - when I am in the car and when I am sitting around in any restaurant / coffee shop / bar for any time because the network sucks so bad.

But that's the whole point of Google Fi. They partnered with Sprint and T-Mobile.

When your in Alameda and Sprint sucks, Google puts you on T-Mobile's network, and you get better data + coverage.

When you head to the rural Midwest, and T-Mobile has EDGE or no service at all, Google can put you back on Sprint LTE and it's at least better than EDGE on T-Mobile.

If this works the way they describe, then you win in both situations -- you get the best of either network, wherever you happen to be.

This is exactly where I'm at. T-Mobile is super fast in Oakland, SF, and even in the BART tunnels, but I just went home to WI and had terrible T-Mobile coverage outside of Milwaukee. So I popped in my Ting SIM (a Sprint MVNO, $6/mo to keep the line open, pay for what you use) and instantly had good coverage.

If you combine two crappy networks, the result won't be as crappy, but it won't necessarily be good either.

In general yes, but TMO and sprint are often the jack and Jill of coverage.

I also live in Alameda and work in SOMA. I have T-Mobile and get excellent coverage in Alameda (definitely improved over the last 4 years), across much of BART, most of the Bay Bridge (not in the tunnnel), and perfect in SOMA. Hangouts works great. One dead spot on 880 approaching 80, but no other empty spots down to San Jose.

The $20 base charge with "unlimited talk and text" makes me feel like I'd be throwing away money in exchange for nothing. Unlimited only makes sense if I'm going to use a reasonable amount of it. These days, I talk barely 20 minutes a month, and I haven't sent a single text so far this month. Apps that use data are rapidly replacing both of them, and people who use a Nexus 6 with Google are likely to be at the forefront of this trend.

I would really prefer a much lower base rate with zero talk/text and reasonable "overage" charges. Even at the old system of $.30/minute and $.25/message, It would probably come out cheaper for me. The overage charges will also encourage me to use more data instead of talk/text, and isn't that what Google wants me to do anyway?

(My mother is with a South Korean MVNO and pays a $0 base rate, with "overage" charges at $.0018 per second of outgoing calls and $.02 per outgoing text. Crazy, huh? Pay-as-you-go data is more expensive with her carrier, but she doesn't need much data.)

All in all, apart from easy international roaming, I don't see anything special in this offer. It's the same old American carrier racket, only more expensive. I expected more from Google.

Ummm...how is this different from every other cell provider ever? Like where can you currently get anywhere near this level of access for less than $20?

That's the point. This is Google, so I expected something different from every other American cell provider ever.

At the very least, I would have expected their plans to encourage people to prefer data to talk/text.

There are a variety of options:

FreedomPop provides 500mb a month free data and you can pre-pay monthly for more data with lower overage costs. You do get sprint only.

Republic Wireless already does the Wifi calling and switching and unlimited data.

Ptel sells prepaid data at a flat $.10/megabye (atleast $10 / 60 days) and there are others in that range.

There really isn't anything new here.

If they can create a global network of networks where I can bring my own device, I'd be interested. The are other resellers that offer

Data and density is an issue in the US.

Compare the size of South Korea, and the size of the US, that's why it's easier to blanket South Korea with data networks.

Google is offering ways to more seamlessly switch WiFi networks and make using a public trusted WiFi instantly.

The fact is that in the US there are a lot of coverage gaps and places where a specific type of service has very bad coverage (2G or 3G). Without cell data Google Maps won't work (1 year ago, might be better now).

We don't know if it will be useful yet, it might be great, it might be nothing special.

They are also offering financing on a Nexus 6, I haven't done the math to see if that's worth it (doubt it), but they'll probably be making a good amount of money off of that.

Most importantly it will put pressure on Verizon and ATT to lower prices and improve the value of the service, just like Google Fiber does it areas it is available in.

The video looks like something directly out of the TV show "Silicon Valley".

Will it ever support iPhones? Obviously, as the competitor, they have some incentive to play by Apple rules and only support devices running their preferred OS, but at the same time, they make such a big deal over the open protocol of Android, plus have a general strategy of "get everyone using Google as much as possible," that I'd assume they'd eventually roll out to iOS (unless the issue is on Apple's end)

I suspect no. iOS users pull down far more data. And it's Apple versus Google. Not going to happen.

Do you have any figures about iOS vs Android data usage? That's a perspective I had not heard.

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

I've been really excited about this upcoming announcement, but I'm disappointed at the pricing.

I used 15GB last month, so I'd pay more than double what I pay now for "unlimited" data.

A lot depends on how well the WiFi network works. If their WiFi network is good enough then your data might stretch a lot further.

> automatically switches you to the "fastest" network available.

It'll be interesting to see what type of impact this has on battery life / reliability.

> refunding data

I'm surprised they didn't go with data roll over or just lower price per GB. Refunds add a layer of guilt / buyers remorse to the process. I suspect a lot of customers will cross a 1GB boundary and feel obligated to use less data to lower their bill.

So, it does exactly the same thing my Nexus one did 5+ years ago before they bought companies and shut them down?

if you don't know what i'm talking about, android got a SIP client working pretty fast from the comunity, and the best provider was using gizmo5. which google bought one year before launching the nexus one. Then on year after launching nexus one, they pulled an apple on it and shut down the service.

then they launched google voice. which was a we-own-all-your-data-in-the-cloud version of gizmo5, but it was nice because they gave me lots of free stuff that almost never worked (phone dialer integration, sms, etc). until the clients they released became a piece of garbage (the last build is still from 2012, then they started to force the features trhu google plus and more recently via hangouts)

Google Voice was from their GrandCentral acquisition.

Gizmo5 was just SIP.

data is paid per-MB with no limits as far as i can see

Whom do I pay, Google?

Yes.

USA only, too.

>or find the video incredibly unhelpful

Watched the video via reddit...NICE smooth style...still not idea wtf they're on about though. Oh well...hn comments will know. Sure enough...top comment is a comment expecting people to arrive here confused. So much for clear google marketing.

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