For those who don't want to read the FAQ or find the video incredibly unhelpful [1]:<p>a. It only supports the Nexus 6 out of the gate.<p>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.<p>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.<p>d. No annual contract required.<p>e. Supports calls over wi-fi.<p>Coverage map here: <a href="https://fi.google.com/coverage" rel="nofollow">https://fi.google.com/coverage</a><p>[1] Not even sure why they made a video, it doesn't explain a thing...<p>Edit: clarified domestic talk pricing, and refunding data.
<p><pre><code> > Pay one rate for data around the world
>
> In 120+ countries, data usage costs the same $10 per GB
> as it does in the US (data speed is limited to 256kbps/3G).
> Check email, get directions, and keep in touch with friends
> and family when on your trip. Also, call around the world
> for 20c per minute and send unlimited international texts.
</code></pre>
This sounds incredible. Roaming cellular transmission costs are enormous. It's routine to pay several dollars per minute for voice and per megabyte for data. If the data roaming is really no-strings attached, this is a must-buy for me (if it ever becomes available in the UK).
"We refund the data you don't use" is basically a way of saying "you pay by the megabyte for the data you do use" -- which is actually really great, I've been frustrated that everyone's settled on "all-you-can-eat" data as the standard, it doesn't align incentives well at all.<p>And they really are refunding it: if you use 1.2GB per month, it doesn't matter whether you sign up for 2, 5, or 10GB, your bill comes out exactly the same.
This is insane. I can't think of an industry that google is not trying to compete in. Auto industry, space industry, internet of things industry (Nest), internet/media industry, cable/internet provider industry, automobile industry, robotics industry, software industry, smartphone industry, pc industry now the telecom industry. I'm starting to expect Google to launch an airline here pretty soon. How can they possibly compete in so many spaces and compete well? Isn't this how Microsoft started doing business and failed at? I just am at a lost of words at Google's diversification strategy. I don't want to be a hater, but do we really want a singular company being the market leader at everything if they do end up succeeding at everything?
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.<p>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 unconditionally recommend it to people because while being able to take calls from my computer and get transcripts of voicemails is great, it also pseudo-randomly decides to only direct some calls to devices where I'm not present with no notification on devices that I'm using and also drops a small percentage of texts (my guess is around 1%). Most people I talk to are horrified by the idea of texts getting dropped, and I don't recommend GV to those folks, although it's fine if that's a tradeoff you're ok with.<p>I understand that it's a beta and that bugs are expected, but it's a problem when you run into a bug that interferes with your ability to use your phone and there's no way to get support for it.<p>Phone carriers aren't exactly known for their stellar customer service, but at least with them, if you call back enough times or escalate to higher level support, you'll eventually get a resolution. As far as I can tell, that's not true of Google's phone related products.
Republic Wireless has been doing hybrid wifi / cell calling for some time:<p><a href="https://republicwireless.com/" rel="nofollow">https://republicwireless.com/</a><p>Their unlimited 3G plan is $25.<p>Republic Wireless is owned by Bandwidth.com which also manages Google Voice numbers:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth.com" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth.com</a>
Whoa, their international rates are crazy good. Same $10/gb across 120 countries.<p>Even limited to 256k/3G, that is still insane. Coverage list here:
<a href="https://fi.google.com/about/rates/" rel="nofollow">https://fi.google.com/about/rates/</a><p>That's enough of a perk that I'm considering moving to a Nexus 6.
The body font ("RoboDraft", #757575) is somewhat unreadable (not enough contrast) on a Chrome/Windows 7 machine with a 1920x1200 display.
For family plans T-Mobile's Simple Choice Plan beats Google Fi in most respects:<p>- No contract<p>- Unlimited domestic talk, intl talk from US to ~100 countries<p>- Competitive intl talk<p>- Unlimited domestic + intl text<p>- 2.5GB 4G LTE data<p>- Unlimited domestic + intl 2G data (128Kbps vs Google's 3G 256Kbps)<p>- Use any GSM phone, not just Nexus 6<p>- Phones purchased from T-Mobile come with Wi-Fi calling<p>Most of my family members portion is $30 / mo. Some higher bandwidth users pay $40 / mo for 4.5GB LTE and data rollover. Our family travels a lot in Asia, having unlimited data / text is really useful.<p>However Google Fi looks like it's really appealing for low usage, single individual plans.
This is doing the same things as Republic Wireless. Calls and texts over wifi to keep their carrier costs down. RW is cheaper at $10 a month without data and $25 for unlimited 3G.<p>With RW you need their customized android phone but they are cheap. $650 for the phone is steep (or a credit pull).
The big thing about this from my perspective is that it abolishes roaming. One plan, and you pay the same whether you use it in your home country or anywhere else. I'm not aware that anybody else is offering that, especially not at that price.<p>As a German living in the UK i currently juggle two SIM cards, and whenever I fly back home I have to mess with the data flatrate there since it's worth activating the monthly flatrate plan even if I just use it for a day. And then I have to make sure that I don't forget to cancel the flatrate when I leave again. Not to mention that this means I have two phone numbers, and I'm not reachable on at least one of them all the time.
I found the link to the coverage map in the FAQ:
> <a href="https://fi.google.com/coverage" rel="nofollow">https://fi.google.com/coverage</a><p>Looks like it blankets most of Canada with 2G service. I guess through roaming agreements from Sprint/T-Mo. I wonder if they are selling to Canadian residents?
This will be awesome once Google makes a nexus that can actually fit in my pocket. I've only switched from nexus to iPhone a few months ago when I lost my nexus 5 and found that nexus 6 is gigantic. The iPhone is pretty but I miss the nexus.
Compared to what I can get from Verizon (US), the international usage is amazing:<p>> Pay one rate for data around the world<p>> In 120+ countries, data usage costs the same $10 per GB as it does in the US (data speed is limited to 256kbps/3G). Check email, get directions, and keep in touch with friends and family when on your trip. Also, call around the world for 20c per minute and send unlimited international texts.
This is very interesting, I have over 10 years experience working in the mobile telecoms industry. Here are my theories on how this could change the market/analysis:<p>1. This reduces the friction in switching networks, no 'SIM Card' Lock in. It's a pain to keep having to switch sim cards. Some people carry 2 phones here in Africa so they can take advantage of different deals by different carriers.<p>2. Due to Point 1, This will face push back from carriers<p>3. Unless there is some incentive for them to get this carriers want to make switching costs as high as possible. To avoid churn.<p>If it succeeds:<p>4. This changes the game in voice calling. Currently you sim is linked to a specific carrier, you only logon to their network all traffic (Local, International Voice, SMS, Data) is carried by them. What if you could route International calls traffic via X, and then local calls via Y?<p>5. WhatsAPP is most likely the company that will get the largest payoff from this. They are a few years ahead of everyone else, and have just launched voice calling.<p>6. Super-normal profits are over for operators<p>7. Actual Network quality (vs marketing about network quality) will become more important.<p>8. This will create an opportunity for players that are focused purely on network quality, and not marketing.<p>9. Carriers spend tons on marketing, failed product launches etc. At times this outstrips their engineering spend. Some even believe this is not a core competency and outsource IT/Engineering. Any carrier that does the opposite, could disrupt the incumbents<p>10. The base-stations (BSS/BSC) becomes more valuable, companies that own these have high value assets. They could then lease it out to other players. A few years back operators in Africa were selling off their base stations to American Towers [0] to fund their marketing budgets. At the time, i thought this was not a very good decision. Now i am convinced it was a terrible decision. The network of base stations is probably one of the most valuable assets a carrier has.<p>If i think of anything else, will post back here.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.americantower.com/corporateus/global-country-selector/index.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.americantower.com/corporateus/global-country-sele...</a>
This is great. I was hoping the data charges would be cheaper. The T-mobile $30 prepaid plan gives you unlimited data with the first 5 gigs at LTE speeds. You also get 100 minutes. This works incredibly well for me as I mostly use my phone for data. If I need to make a call, I'll use google hangouts over LTE.
Can someone explain why mobile data is now the expense driver for phone plans and why it's so expensive? It's obvious that data usage has skyrocketed now that smartphones have taken off, but is all that data usage draining mobile networks? Is there not enough capacity? Or is it just that it's so expensive to build? Is it such a massive barrier-to-entry that rates aren't really competitive?
This is <i>almost</i> cheap enough to pay for the new device I would need to use it. I could save ~$25 a month given my current usage patterns over the T-Mobile plan I have. I imagine users of Verizon or AT&T, which are quite a bit more expensive for the same amount of data, might consider this a huge bargain. Certainly being able to migrate across two decent networks makes it more likely to be competitive with the better/bigger networks of Verizon and AT&T.<p>I wonder, and can't seem to find in my cursory glance through the FAQ, how this handles regular numbers vs Google Voice numbers. I currently use two numbers on my phone. My Google Voice number (which is how I assume this thing does what it does), and the "native" cell number I've had for nearly 20 years. I know I could port the native number to Google Voice, but I currently use both numbers...so, that wouldn't really work, as I'd still need to be able to use my Google Voice number, too. It's a little clumsy on current Android phones (you choose which number to use for outgoing calls either at call-time or by-default), but it works. If this only works for Google Voice service, it might be a bit challenging to switch.<p>Also, they say this supports MMS. Does that mean sending MMS is <i>finally</i> coming to Google Voice?
Nowhere does the FAQ address this, but I'm assuming that my home and office wifi data use on my phone would continue to be unlimited? They're not going to somehow meter my home wifi use? My wife uses her phone all the time for home internet surfing and email.
This (metered data) seems anti-thetical to google<p>Google wants you to use the internet as much as possible.<p>They want you to use google search, watch youtube videos, check gmail, write google documents.<p>Now you're discouraged from doing all those things due to metered data.<p>The Business Model of Google Fi seems extremely short sighted,<p>-----<p>For context: I'm using metroPCS with a nexus 5. I get Unlimited 4G on T-Mobile's network for $60/month.<p>They Offer lower amounts of data (ex: 5 GB) for $50 per month but after 5 GB you just get 3G data.
So if I jump onto an unsecured hotspot, you're telling me 100% of my traffic is being routed through a Google proxy first? The same company that already has all of my email, docs, photos, and chats? I guess they already had my browsing history with Chrome, but wow... that's a lot.
> Coverage in 120+ countries<p>20USD is ridiculously expensive in some countries. I understand that this may be cheap in the US (is it?), but it's more than twice what I pay in latin america.<p>And the price goes up if you want data - which you will in 2015.
Just want to hasle you guys with danish pricing<p>For about $28 a month i Get ALL this:<p>4 hours talk time
5GB 4g data
Unlimited text<p>And these services are included FREE<p>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)
Eurowoman (Magazine think ladies GQ)
Gastro (Magazine)
Rum (Magazine)<p><a href="https://www.telmore.dk/telmoreplay?icid=home-playlightpakke-laesmere" rel="nofollow">https://www.telmore.dk/telmoreplay?icid=home-playlightpakke-...</a>
Something that isn't clear: is it possible to attach to non-public wi-fi access points? Also: do they charge the same rate per gig for wi-fi data as for LTE data? If so, this seems like a real ripoff.
I wonder how integrated this will be with Google Voice. For instance, will the voice/SMS component have the same spam filtering and Gmail integration that GVoice users get?
With Cricket Wireless (<a href="https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell-phone-plans" rel="nofollow">https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell-phone-plans</a>), I can use the vastly superior AT&T network and spend $60/month for 10GB of data, plus unlimited voice and text.<p>This would cost $120/month on Project Fi, and I'd be forced to use T-Mobile and Sprint, both of which have inferior coverage in the US.
I'm currently on Republic Wireless. The base rate (call/text only) is $10 vs $20 for Google. RW has a $25/mn 3G plan and a $40/mn LTE plan (5GB). Google Fi has the advantage of always having LTE speeds.<p>RW is able to have cheaper rates because they are doing WiFi calling, which is exactly what Google is doing; no doubt leveraging their Google Voice/Hangouts infrastructure to handle WiFi calling.
I want this as my travel phone. And I love that there's no contract. Not sure how I feel about Google pulling a man-in-the-middle on all of my internet traffic, texts and calls. Kinda scary that they automatically pipe all wifi through their VPN, but I guess they have 90% of that data already and Google are probably safer than the random coffee shop wifi people are used to connecting to.
"Request Invite" --> 404.<p>Good start.<p>EDIT: Only if the window is sized small enough to trigger the mobile layout for the navbar. Kind of funny in view of Mobilegeddon.
Two observations:<p>1) Terrible name, really awful. Fi? I guess if it's "project" maybe this wasn't public-brand ready?<p>2) Why wouldn't someone choose the t-mobile unlimited plan vs this one?<p>3) For the refund policy, why wouldn't everyone sign up for the lowest plan? The presentation is confusing, just say 1gb min and $10 for each gig after that.
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.
it's not explicitly spelled out that I can see, but data used over wifi doesn't count towards the cellular network data usage at $10/gb right?
"Once you get an invitation, you’ll also need a Nexus 6—the first smartphone to work with our network of networks. You can buy one from Project Fi when you sign up or bring one you already use."<p>=> seriously. its a "Device lockin" instead of "network lockin"
I already have metropcs, its $40/mo for unlimited everything. My plan covers unlimited up to 3g, for 4g or LTE I get 2gb/mo. If I wanted unlimited though, its only $60/mo. How is $100 for 10GB even comparable? Metropcs also has no contract required.
The only unique feature I see is WiFi<->mobile handoff, aka fixed/mobile integration.<p>Apart from that, I get the same service from Google Voice and T-Mobile, except I get supposedly un-capped, un-throttled data (I haven't tried to test this) from T-Mo.
This seems insanely expensive to me! Three offers a sim-only deal that works with all phones with unlimited data for just £17 ($25), and roaming in Europe will be free after December 2015! Are mobile plans significantly more expensive in the US?
Interesting - I like the data roaming, but the pricing isn't very good compared to what I pay here in Italy, which is under 20 euros for 2 GB a month on the provider's network, 400 minutes and 100 sms's.
In my experience, video chat through Google hangout uses about 1G/hour. $10/G translates to $10/hour. This is a significant cost for a remote worker using video chat as a routine meeting venue.
Can anyone explain why the data charges are set up how they are? Why have you choose a "plan" in increments of $10 and then refund/charge you (per MB?) for going under/over your "plan"? Why not just charge you for usage at the end of the month? It comes out the same, and one is weird and the other is very simple.<p>Republic's Maestro seems to be similar: "Get paid back" for data you don't use. Why? It just makes me keep rereading looking for the catch.
What are the pro/cons of wifi versus 3G/4G ? I guess Wifi is a simpler hardware standard ?<p>Or does 3g/4g enable more distance and mobility and allow towers to "connect" more terminals at the same time?<p>I'm puzzled by wireless data layers as google had some wimax project in mind, but I've no clue how those technologies work. I can understand wired networks, but wireless seems like a mystery to me (I also wish there would be more open standards for long distance data channels).
Looks great for international travelers, but this would more than double my $30 monthly unlimited data plan from T-Mobile. I used 5.2GB last month, so that would cost me $73.
Without unlimited data, this is useless to me. If T-Mobile and Sprint can pull off unlimited data plans, then so should Google (<i>especially</i> if Google Fi uses - you guessed it - both Sprint and T-Mobile as its partner carriers). The <i>least</i> they can do is offer a "you get so-and-so gigabytes of 4G data before we throttle you down to 2G, and we won't charge you anything extra" like what T-Mobile does for its non-unlimited plans.
One day it would be nice to not have large chunks of the country not covered by good cell service. Since this service can make calls over WiFi that would remedy some of the situations I have been in where I had WiFi at a campground or similar but cell was spotty or non existent. Granted making a call over the WiFi provided at some camps might not be all the possible.<p>edit, another area I found little to no cell service was the turnpikes through Virgina and West Virgina.
I'm hoping that their Wifi <--> 4G handoff for calls works better than the T-Mobile handoff. I've noticed that on our enterprise network the extra time it takes to authenticate causes the call to drop. I do understand that the problem has to do with the software implementation and not android, but I'm assuming systems like that are reasonably similar or are provided by some outside vendor?
Im guessing this doesn't piggy back on tmobile music streaming?<p>I'm currently paying $32 for 5GB on tmobile, google wants $50 for the same network.
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.
I often have to manually disconnect from a slow wifi connection and switch to 4G. Project Fi doing it automatically looks great!<p>Those tariffs seem pretty steep though - I'm getting 3GB of 4G data for £15 a month [1]. Is $50/mo normal in the states?<p>[1]: <a href="https://giffgaff.com/goodybags-4g" rel="nofollow">https://giffgaff.com/goodybags-4g</a>
Two things I notice looking at the coverage map.[0]<p>1. Wow, it's available in Canada right off the bat. This must be a first for Google.<p>2. Does nobody in Montana own a cell phone? Alberta is probably equally empty as Montana, and yet almost their entire provice has coverage.<p>[0] <a href="https://fi.google.com/coverage" rel="nofollow">https://fi.google.com/coverage</a>
When I bought my Nexus 6 from T-Mobile, one of the things the CSRs told me was that it would soon be supporting Wifi calling similar to how the other carrier branded phones did. They were just waiting on an update to Android.<p>Now this comes out, and I wonder if the update is still happening or if Google's answer will be to switch to Fi instead.
With my family we have 5 phones, 3 iPads and 1 hotspot. 2 of the phones are unlimited data with international voice / text and free 3G international data. Other stuff is on 5Gb data. Cost around $300 per month (t-mobile). The Google math does not seem to work for me. Now I will say t-mobiles coverage could be better.
This reminds me of Anqor: <a href="http://www.anqor.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.anqor.com/</a><p>They are basically emulating SIM cards from a database to give you the best rates for where you are.<p>Is Google doing something similar, or are they just big enough to make good deals with telcos internationally?
Hacker News is great. Saw the video and got nothing, came here and got the facts.
Side note: Google has been taken over by marketers, the engineers who built this must be cringing.
Certainly not a startup way to do this, feels a bit like Wave ie massive ambition, not useful out of the box to anybody.
My current AT&T plan gives me unlimited calling and text along with 15GB of data per month for $90. Fi would definitely be expensive for me for the same data usage.
I've signed up for an invite nonetheless (I have a Nexus 6) and interested to see how it goes.
So this only works with a Nexus6, but does anyone know of a comparable plan that is month to month that supports international roaming? I've got an unlocked Blu Android phone I was hoping to use overseas for traveling through Asia. Is t-mobile the only one?
International rates are way too high, 12c for landline minute or 31 for cellphone in Serbia is ripoff.<p>They are doing Republic Wireless by Google. This is not bad and might make more competition. Maybe not many users will use it, but there will be perception of one more option.
Unfortunately they haven't launched family plans yet, so I would be paying more than I do with T-mobile for virtually the same plan (in addition to Sprint coverage, which isn't all that useful in my area). Hopefully it comes soon.
Video borrows a lot from Apple's "Designed by Apple in California": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyQfye4vAQ8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyQfye4vAQ8</a>
This does look promising but it is in no way cheaper than existing options. I am currently using a family plan from AT&T to get 1GB (10GB shared among 10 to be precise) + unlimited calls+text for $27.17 per month.
It surprises me every time how expensive data is in the US. I get unlimited text, 300 minutes and 6GB of data(4G) for about $40 a month.<p>I make a lot of my calls through Facetime now, so I don't need unlimited minutes.
This is too little too late. AT&T nearly matches this with a much better network. The international stuff is interesting but not that interesting with the current plans available from carriers.
Unfortunately I think I'll need to stick with buying my phones for half the cost and sticking with a 2 year contract with a company like Verizon.<p>I can't justify switching and needing to buy a $650 phone.
Everything about this sounds better than my current plan with Verizon except the coverage. Looking at their coverage map in central Virginia scares me because of the large areas of no coverage.
Besides home where I amazingly get "4G" where I travel is 2G so yeah - the irony is I'm typing this while using a Verizon LTE Mifi hostpot from said "2G" location.
Their roaming cost for data, is actually less then I would pay for data with a Canadian company. If it wasn't for the voice (and only 3g), I would totally sign up.
this is excellent, someone well funded to take on the cellular companies that have been asleep at the wheel with pricing, customer service and innovation for years.
The company who figures out how to make mobile data cheap will absolutely crush the competition.<p>Let's hope that's Google's intent with this project.
Is it something similar like..<p>When one of my friend calls from UAE ( to India) using internet, I got call from a local indian number.<p>Not sure what system is that.
the only question is that, it's unavailable and you need an invite and then wait, this becomes the norm these days, you can announce something for sale at the first sight, then let the potential customer to wait, don't feel too good about this kind of sales/marketing method myself.
This is sweet. My brother and I were thinking about wild ideas like this. We couldn't be more happy to see someone as awesome as google doing this.
In their FAQ they haven't addressed the security issues when connecting to public WiFi hotspots. The user's traffic would be flowing unencrypted, easily accessible to strangers. I wonder if they'll be providing free VPN service when connected to public WiFi.
"Project Fi has partnered with Sprint and T-Mobile, two of the leading carriers in the US, to launch our service."<p>Lolz. That's some definition of leading I haven't heard before.