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I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

• ndiscussion 8y ago
  Google Fi sucks, it's way too expensive. The last several years have seen an explosion of MVNOs, mobile virtual network operators. I use Mint Sim and get 3gb LTE/month with unlimited talk and text, and unlimited throttled internet after the 3gb, for $15/month.
  • anamexis 8y ago
    Part of the appeal of Google Fi for me is the unlimited free international roaming. Do you know if there's any competition in that area?
    • radicaldreamer 8y ago
      And no other carrier offers up to 9 additional data only SIMs on the same plan without additional charges.
      • sithadmin 8y ago
        This is by far the thing I miss most about Fi, and I'm shocked that no other carrier so far has replicated the feature.
        • radicaldreamer 8y ago
          It’s because people will figure out that they don’t need voice services st all...
          • sithadmin 8y ago
            That's not a problem if you follow the Fi billing model: a base payment for voice and SMS/MMS service is always required to keep the account active. Data is billed separately.
            • radicaldreamer 8y ago
              The thing is that I’m sure there are plenty of families on Fi who don’t have phone numbers for anyone but the primary account holder and rely on voip.
      • StillBored 8y ago
        Because they charge by the byte, rather that the sim card. I find it hard to believe that is a generally useful feature unless you happen to have a network of IoT devices with 100MB of data usage a month. Whatever you do, don't give one of those sim cards to my kids, which somehow manage to burn multiple GB a month each with the occasional music/youtube video in the car/whatever when they are away from the home/school/etc wifi.
    • sithadmin 8y ago
      For US customers, TMO is the next closest (and is the carrier partner Fi uses for international roaming anyway). The catch is that TMO's ONE service plan throttles 'free' international usage to 2G speeds. Fi on the other hand does not.
      • maehwasu 8y ago
        That "catch" is such a big difference in practice that it makes TMO a totally different (worse) thing.
    • pavanky 8y ago
      I traveled to India in 2017 and 2018. I had problems getting HSPA+ most of the time. Had no problems with local carriers.
      • mbrumlow 8y ago
        In Mumbai right now. Full LTE. I did a speed test today for fun and got 25mbps down and 5 up. Last night on the way to some mall we took a route though some sort of jungle dairy farm. Both of the locals had no signal when about half way through traffic stopped ( except for the masses of motor bikes, they just keep comming ). I was the only one able to pull it Google maps and check how far up thr road the traffic was. Maybe Mumbai is set up better for Fi? What parts were you in ? Also. The main post here should be about Google payments, not Fi.
    • pdx_flyer 8y ago
      Same here. I am actually an AT&T customer and the $10/day for international roaming is nice as a backup but for the most part I just use my wife's Fi data SIM and pay a lot less.
  • el_benhameen 8y ago
    Are there any downsides to Mint? I thought I was getting a pretty good deal with t-mobile, but damn, $15 a month is pretty tempting.
    • holidaygoose 8y ago
      Only two things I noticed when comparing on their website. 1) lock in contracts, and 2) they piggyback off the T-Mobile network while Google Fi dynamically uses the best of 3 networks. Otherwise seems like a pretty frugal option.
      • sithadmin 8y ago
        >they piggyback off the T-Mobile network while Google Fi dynamically uses the best of 3 networks This happens only in theory, not practice with Fi. As a Fi launch customer that stuck with Fi through late 2017, Sprint (and later US Cellular) service was always terrible and frequently unusable, no matter what metro area I used it in. My experience improved dramatically when I just kept my Nexus device around as a spare, and moved my primary SIM to an iPhone, where it was permanently locked to using TMO.
    • sithadmin 8y ago
      I'll second that Mint is solid. They're a no-nonsense TMO-based MVNO. If you just need text, talk, and minimal to moderate data, and are okay with TMO's hit or miss coverage and iffy building penetration (which seems to have only improved moderately in spite of their band 12 LTE rollout), Mint is fine.
    • axaxs 8y ago
      I used Mint on and off. The service itself is solid, and the international rates were among the best around. I only left because my neighborhood has poor TMo coverage.
    • golem14 8y ago
      Anecdata: Mint has been working quite well for me for about a year, including during a few trips to Europe. I believe pricing gets even a tiny bit better if you buy service for a whole year at once.
  • holidaygoose 8y ago
    I'm perplexed. I can see hating them for other reasons, but expensive would not be the word I associate with Google Fi. I pay $22 including taxes/fees per month, but it's probably not a good carrier for people who watch a lot of video on their phones. * they're also probably one of the only honest carriers in terms of taxes/fees. My previous carrier had a much higher tax % which I thought was normal, but now I realize it was just a markup disguised as a tax, so they could continue to offer their "$40/month for everything" price point while actually charging $50/month.
    • beaorn 8y ago
      agreed, it is so much cheaper than verizon for multiple phones on a plan. we don't use a lot of data, but its very predictable and cheap pricing if we are traveling and are using it. I've not had to deal with support often, so my experience has been positive. My single gripe about Project/Google Fi is that sometimes I'm forced to use a 3rd party app (FiSwitch) for when it doesn't automatically switch to the best carrier for that area, but even with that the cheaper price is enough for me to stay. I still hope they improve the carrier detection issue though.
    • envy2 8y ago
      If you use large amounts of mobile data, their plans very quickly become obnoxious (throttled after 15GB) and expensive ($80 plus taxes/fees). Compare that with T-Mobile, who offers $70 a month (including taxes/fees) with throttling at 50GB and 20GB of hotspot data for $15/mo more, or even AT&T or Verizon, and it's more expensive for less service.
      • beaorn 8y ago
        I'm not sure this is the use case for the majority of Fi users, if they are using a lot of data its going to be cheaper from one of the source carriers than Fi, there is no way Fi could be cheaper than T-Mobile or Sprint who are the Google Fi carriers for heavy data use like this. Most of the time my phone is on wifi and only using data during travel why pay for anything Im not expecting to use. If I'm off wifi enough where I'm doing a lot of data I'm not using Fi.
  • deepsun 8y ago
    Isn't it 2GB? And on their website I'm charged $45 for some reason. Also the plan says 3-month plan (regular price $23), so your price seems to be promotional.
    • 4d66ba06 8y ago
      Mint requires you to buy at least 3 months at a time.
  • magduf 8y ago
    I agree. Personally, I wouldn't use Mint (I just looked them up and they use the T-Mobile network--no thanks! I like having reliable service outside of the middle of metro areas.), but I use "Total Wireless" which is a Verizon MVNO, and it costs me $34/month for 5GB and unlimited text and talk, and uses the Verizon network. But $15/mo. for 3GB if you don't mind T-Mo's spotty signal quality is a really good deal.
• buf 8y ago
  I just traveled to Japan, the Phil, Bulgaria, San Francisco, and Boston without having to change sim cards or worry about my data situation. I'm going to keep it until someone else can do the same at a lower price.
  • jxi 8y ago
    T-Mobile does it for cheaper than Fi, especially if you have a family plan. I've also heard reports that they have better global coverage than Google Fi due to better negotiated deals with the local companies. For example, Fi doesn't work well in Vietnam whereas T-Mobile does.
  • faitswulff 8y ago
    Why not T-Mobile?
    • sithadmin 8y ago
      Fi negotiated better terms for international roaming with TMO than TMO gives its own customers. TMO customers are rate-throttled abroad; Fi is not.
      • toomuchtodo 8y ago
        But I can get a TMO customer rep on the phone in under 60 seconds. And just did, moments ago, to get an unlock code for an iPhone I sent with a friend who moved out of the US. Trade offs!
    • buf 8y ago
      2G speeds: https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global
    • mcrae 8y ago
      TMO only gives 2G internationally which, while it doesn’t sound terrible, it ends up being unusable in practice. Your experience may vary though I guess.
• sithadmin 8y ago
  I abandoned Fi after a trip to western Europe, where I was billed for 6 GB of usage in a single day on one of my data-only SIM cards, despite that the device the SIM was installed in (a 4G hotspot) registered only 200MB of usage that day. Support was completely unhelpful, and after escalation reported back that the Fi team has zero visibility into chargebacks from their carrier partners and ergo could not diagnose the cause of the usage discrepancy. The lack of accountability on Fi's part, in addition to various annoyances (handset tendency to select Sprint coverage despite poor performance; handset tendency to override manual carrier selection to the detriment of service reliability; generally worse reliability and coverage than my previous carrier) led me to move back to Verizon. I pay an arm and a leg for my service, but at least it's highly reliable and available.
  • magduf 8y ago
    I just went to western Europe (Germany specifically), and spend 15 Euros for phone service there. It's simple: I just bought a SIM card at a shop (O2) and put it in my Verizon phone. I got a prepaid card that had unlimited text/calls (within Germany only), and 3GB of data, which was far more than enough for my 2 weeks there. Cellular service is much cheaper in Europe than in the US, so you might as well take advantage of it. International calling plans for American phones are horrendously overpriced. Of course, the downside is that I couldn't call or text anyone in the States, but who cares? That's what apps are for. I was able to talk to and message friends/family in the US using Facebook messenger and LINE. While on my hotel's free WiFi, my VoIP calls cost me nothing.
    • fernandotakai 8y ago
      i to the same whenever i travel abroad -- be it USA (i use t-mobile) or europe (went twice, used o2 twice). it's a lot less complicated.
    • gusmd 8y ago
      The same 3 GB of data would have costed you $30 with Fi (or less if you were already near/over the 6 GB threshold). Given that 15 EUR is about 18 USD, you essentially saved 12 USD. Personally, I would have gladly paid $12 to not have to go to a store in foreign country, switch SIM cards, have to worry about hitting the 3 GB limit, lose the ability to call or text anyone in the states, etc. But to each, their own.
• x0x0 8y ago
  tl;dr: * all payments through google use google pay * poster's husband bought a pixel 3 at the same time there was fraud on their card. * the pixel 3 shipped even though the payment was reversed because of the fraud * google shut down his google pay account hard, and that broke google fi, hangouts, access to his phone number, etc. * google support has been super googley about this (ie foad) * if you ever have fraud problems with google pay, prepare for all google stuff to break with 0 resolution or help * as a side note, poster bought a pixel 3 and they have improved their support from the pixel 2 to be more googley. The phone remains basically broken.
  • tramGG 8y ago
    This is why consolidation of power is bad. You can't out run their influence and consideration. Competition is great in both tech and state because you have options (barring collusion).
• AlexB138 8y ago
  She's definitely right that the quality of their support has tanked. I've had significant connection issues where people on other carriers have none and their support personnel sent me useless boilerplate questions after I requested support. They then followed up with a multi-page incoherent trouble shooting doc that seemed aimed at their own engineers. One of the worst support experiences I've had, even from Google. When I first signed up they had fantastic support, now it's worse than what I expect from Comcast.
  • jahabrewer 8y ago
    She
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • AlexB138 8y ago
      Ah, you're correct. I mistook the top poster here, iandanforth, as saying they were the author. Edited.
• jayalpha 8y ago
  I love my Fi. But I did not activate it in the US and activating abroad was not trivial. Their "Service" called this "buyers remorse" since I could still use Wifi. Long story.
• drewg123 8y ago
  I'm going through something similar with Lyft. I got a new pixel phone, had to re-setup my account in an airport added my cards, and was unable to hail a ride due to some "oops, there was a problem, try again" error with both the cards I entered. That was 9 months ago. To this day, I've been unable to use Lyft, and I can't get anybody to really look at the issue. I'm not sure why they don't want to take my money, but for now, I just use Uber. Hopefully they won't decide they hate met too.
  • SamWhited 8y ago
    Please look up information about Uber's business practices and don't use them. A few minor technical problems are nothing compared to how bad Uber is. Disclaimer: Austin resident who is still mad at both of them for all the massive lies they published all over the city and the huge amount of our money and time they wasted with their stupid campaign to not have to fingerprint drivers.
    • dvtrn 8y ago
      I remember that. It was my last year in Austin and I vowed to never use them either for that same reason and also this one: https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-for-sale/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-f...
    • strictnein 8y ago
      > "A few minor technical problems" If they're literally unable to use a service because of a glitch, it's not a "minor technical problem".
      • SamWhited 8y ago
        So? There are plenty of other alternatives anywhere.
    • envy2 8y ago
      As a consumer, I don't really care. I long ago realized that most big companies I do business with have probably done something sketchy in terms of lobbying / dodging regulation, whether they've gotten caught yet or not, and decided to stop losing sleep over it and just use the services that work best for me.
• roland35 8y ago
  I am happy with Fi, and have been a customer for 2.5 years so far. There are certainly many use cases in which Fi is way more expensive, but that is the case with any carrier. I think as far as customer support I have had more problems with Verizon than Fi, but your mileage may vary!
• drewblaisdell 8y ago
  Maybe someone on HN will know the answer to this: is it easy to enable/disable service with Google Fi? My use case is to use Fi while traveling internationally for a few months out of the year while switching back to my existing plan in the US. I only want to pay for Fi in the months when I'm out of the country.
  • roland35 8y ago
    I haven't disabled my service, but it was pretty straightforward to enable and everything can be managed through the website/app! Things seems to be easier now than before since you don't need a Fi-specific phone to activate
  • sithadmin 8y ago
    You can pause Fi service for a few months at a time. However, Google will catch on to your proposed usage pattern and will eventually boot you from the platform. Majority usage outside the USA violate ToS. There are plenty of stories on r/projectfi about this. I've also had a personal friend that was booted after he subscribed to Fi, then moved out of the USA month later for a temporary work assignment, and was booted from Fi a few months later for violating ToS.
    • drewblaisdell 8y ago
      Thanks for the info. > Majority usage outside the USA violate ToS. Bummer.
    • saagarjha 8y ago
      > Majority usage outside the USA violate ToS. I'm not seeing this listed here: https://fi.google.com/about/tos/ https://fi.google.com/about/tos/. What are the guidelines behind this?
      • splonk 8y ago
        "The Services are offered only to residents of the United States. The Services must be primarily used in the United States and are not intended for extended international use. Further, the Services are designed for use predominantly within our network. If your usage outside our network is excessive, abnormally high, or cause us to incur too much cost, we may, at our option and sole discretion, suspend your Google Fi account, terminate your service, or limit your use of roaming."
• godelski 8y ago
  Since switching to Android 9 has anyone else noticed that their data usage went up? Or rather that their phone disconnects from Wifi frequently?
• andr 8y ago
  I had a few unsuccessful back and forths with different Fi agents about an issue, and after a couple of weird remarks, I developed the theory that first level agents get their performance scores penalized every time they escalate an issue. I would have them go through the same script over and over for over an hour, and even sometimes admit that I had an issue, but refuse to press that button. I have no hard evidence, but that was my read from the conversations, and would explain the bad support experience overall.
  • roland35 8y ago
    That is interesting, I have never actually called them but have used the chat and email interface a few times with pretty good success. I wonder if there is any difference in how the different communication methods are scored?
  • Thriptic 8y ago
    I actually had the polar opposite experience. I had a complex support issue with my pixel 3 delivery and I got irritated because support was constantly escalating and shunting to different teams. While it was a bitch to fix the problem and took awhile, to Google's credit they did eventually do so and went the extra mile for me to extend a promotion and honor a referral code which they certainly didn't need to do.
  • Merad 8y ago
    Close, but not quite. Call centers are designed to make the general support (tier 1) agents effectively flesh and blood robots. These are jobs that might start at $10 an hour if you’re lucky, have little training, and typically very high turnover rates. Even if you get a competent/experienced agent who has literally seen your problem a thousand times and knows that step 3 of the script will always fix it, they will be penalized if they skip the first two steps. Likewise, they will be penalized if they transfer you to tier 2 until they get to the step in the script that says, “transfer to tier 2.” It doesn’t matter if you’ve had this exact problem 5 times before and every instance required tier 2. Doesn’t matter if you were just talking to another agent who ran the whole script and screwed up your transfer. The only way you might get lucky is if you’re lucky enough to have some kind of open case or note on the account that instructs them to transfer you directly.
• iandanforth 8y ago
  The lede here is somewhat burried: "From what I’ve since learned, if a card in your Google Pay is stolen, or someone uses your Payments account fraudulently, or anything happens that leads to a security flag being raised, it can lead to your Google Payments account being frozen. ... If you can’t use Google Payments, you can’t pay for Google Fi This, fundamentally, is why I can’t suggest anyone use Project Fi anymore. ... Getting this fixed is actually impossible, and I say that as someone who really, truly, loves solving problems and has made a living off getting phone agents to want to help me. We have submitted copies of his ID four times, my ID twice, multiple photos of credit cards, and various credit card statements. We’ve talked to agents and supervisors at Google Payments and Google Fi. No one is empowered to do anything, and even a well-intentioned agent doesn’t get the same answer from the “security department” twice. I’ve since found hundreds of comments and Reddit threads from people having similar experiences, with almost zero positive conclusions. The only suggestion of a solution we’ve been given is that he abandon both his email address and phone number of the past twenty years and start fresh."
  • ronsor 8y ago
    This is a general issue with google. If their system decides it doesn't like you, then you're out of luck. You'll never get them to fix it.
    • zenexer 8y ago
      I recently had nearly the same exact problem with Microsoft. Security department is a black box—zero communication. A friend working for Microsoft even escalated my case internally at the time, but nobody could do or see anything. My account was eventually unfrozen without so much as an email to notify me, never mind an explanation. The point is, this issue isn’t limited to Google.
      • jlarocco 8y ago
        Wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft saw how much money Google saves by not having support, and decided to follow their lead. They used to have decent support.
• mcrae 8y ago
  Despite everything else said, I’ve gotta say that there’s no better feeling than touching down in a new place, turning on your phone, and having it just work. No stupid voip apps. No managing prepaid balances. No switching sims. Just direct dial and go. Fi service is incredible for the mobile roaming alone and I’m not quite sure why nobody else can do it. I love it so much and it’s my favorite product. It makes a measurable positive impact in my life.
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    Is that not normal with other carriers? I've made multiple trips abroad and aside from an occasional delay of a few minutes, my phone just works wherever I go.
    • walterbell 8y ago
      How much do you pay for international data?
    • ufo 8y ago
      For many carriers the roaming costs are so outrageous you may as well pretend that it is not an option.
    • bduerst 8y ago
      Not with major U.S. Carriers. Verizon & ATT nickle and dime you whenever they can, international travel not excluded.
  • sandyhatches 8y ago
    Yeah, this. We've been out of the US for a year now, works everywhere we've been (except Vietnam, though that worked out okay too because Hangouts has calls/text). Can't imagine having to hassle with a new sim every new country, esp with there being 5 of us.
    • mcrae 8y ago
      I've thought about the idea of creating a 'global MVNO'. Like a plan with multiple foreign numbers being bound to one SIM, and being able to roam seamlessly and pay a fixed rate + reasonable usage fees. For example, someone in finance could have a UK and US number on a single SIM, and easily move back and forth. Or the same for KR and JP or US and MX. Not sure if there is a large enough market for that.
• dstaley 8y ago
  Stories like this make me incredibly wary about the future of my Google account. I've been using it for almost twelve years. It has a copy of every photo/video I've taken for almost eight years. It's what I use to download apps, listen to music, and pay for things, and get around. I'd be absolutely devastated if I suddenly lost it. I've been planning for a while now a sort of contingency plan where I regularly backup my emails and photos, but from what I've read even that's difficult to do.
  • ndnxhs 8y ago
    Its not particularly hard to back up your google data. The hard part is switching emails when the old one gets suddenly taken from you.
    • 2Ccltvcm 8y ago
      Get your own domain and start using it for email. Auto-forward your existing emails to your new email provider. Over time your use of your primary email will asymptotically reach zero. After a few years you will realize that if the original email disappeared overnight, nothing of value would be lost. You have to start the switch TODAY.
      • ndnxhs 8y ago
        Yeah thats what I have done and its not too bad. The one question I have is what email to I put for my domain stuff. If my domain name provider suspends my domain for some reason how do I contact them if my email has also gone down?
        • cesnja 8y ago
          A phone. Or some other email along with providing a way of identifying yourself.
  • davchana 8y ago
    The easiest way to mirror gmail, i have heard & am using is, to set a filter in gmail, forward every mail received to Hotmail. So, any point, Hotmail inbox is a pretty segregated but exact copy of Gmail
• devicenull 8y ago
  I've been trying to get Fi to resolve a billing issue.... I'm stuck in a loop with support where they keep asking me for a security code, then the next day they'll respond back saying it expired and they need another one. The codes only seem to be valid for 30m, so I don't have any idea why they keep asking for them...
• aaomidi 8y ago
  Companies like google shouldn't be allowed to just ban someone's account and leave it at that. We actually need to regulate how OUR data is handled and managed by companies. Google thinks just because they provide an email service, they own all the emails in their service. This should not be the case and with all our reliance on cloud services, we need to be assured that our accounts are safe and we won't be denied access over stuff that isn't in our control.
  • fastball 8y ago
    Email is a federated system. If you don't like how Google handles it, run your own mail server.
    • hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      That's kind of a ridiculous statement these days. It's a bit like saying "Worried about e coli contamination in your food? Run your own farm." These days, running a mail server is a complicated business, and the very fact that you ARE running your own server makes it much, much more likely that all the other mail servers consider you a spam relay unless you are very, very careful about how you have configured things.
      • username223 8y ago
        This is a pet peeve. SMTP goes to insane lengths to ensure that messages are never lost, but spam filters have broken those guarantees. I don't manage my own SMTP server, but my mail is hosted on a personal domain not backed by GMail, and I can never be sure if it has been delivered.
• ben509 8y ago
  Just my luck, I start seeing all the horror stories after I've just signed up for this. Pucker intensifies...
  • titanomachy 8y ago
    99% chance you'll be totally fine, so probably not worth losing sleep over it.
• maslam 8y ago
  I've been a Fi customer for two years. Sometimes it 'just works' when you travel internationally, which is magical. Most times however it just ok. It was dismal in Pakistan last year. In Netherlands it's barely ok. I'm ditching it in a few days since the Dutch have better, cheaper carriers.
• pdx_flyer 8y ago
  A credit card pushing post veiled as a Google Fi review. Awesome. My wife still loves Fi, and I love having a Fi data sim.
  • metalliqaz 8y ago
    You're not wrong, but you don't have to point it out like it's a revelation. The disclosure is prominently displayed at the head of the article.
    • pdx_flyer 8y ago
      Every post is marked with that disclosure. I just find the content hard to read when it is so blatantly there to try and get you to sign up for one of the cards that happens to be mentioned. The whole post could have been 150 words.
      • Dylan16807 8y ago
        The whole post had quite a lot of useful setup for how support has changed and the current state of it. Don't be so taken aback by a single sentence of advertising that it taints your view of the rest.
• duxup 8y ago
  I'd leave Fi, but who am I going to use after that? Verizon, ATT? Granted Fi uses ATT (and roams on Verizon once in a while) but I'd rather not pay them directly....
• netinstructions 8y ago
  This really hits home. Probably 99.999% of users won't have issues with Google's products / services, but if you're one of the unlucky few, you're helpless. All you can hope for is to make enough noise on the internet to get a Googler's attention. None of the normal escalation channels work. My issues with Project Fi / Google Store were not resolved via their online chat, nor their phone support, nor emails to their product support, nor any of my posts on their product support forums, nor any tweets at various Google accounts. Only after a blog post received attention on Reddit did I get a call from head of support who was able to resolve my issue.
• gus_massa 8y ago
  Just to be sure, the gmail account was also locked?
• CPLX 8y ago
  She should sue Google. Serious response. This kind of thing is bullshit, and she has a legal right to have the number ported, especially if she’s been willing to pay the bill and has not been able to due to Google’s technical problems. File a lawsuit for the value of the time she’s had to spend on it and an order to show cause or temporary restraining order type motion for them to release the number to her. It’s too bad the legal system is so intimidating to people because more people doing this might one day wake companies up a little. Needless to say this doesn’t contradict the advice to not use the service in the first place.
  • hojjat12000 8y ago
    I have no idea what you just said. To understand that I need to see a lawyer, pay hundreds of dollars to be told what my right is, and how I can proceed. Then probably invest thousands of dollars in a lawsuit. At least that's how I see it. Unless there is an app that you click a button and you sue Google for free that I don't know about.
    • tracker1 8y ago
      Any money spend on the lawsuit itself can be recovered as part of said lawsuit. Also, Google will probably wind up paying more just for their legal team than you will AND have to pay in the end... if more people did this, they'd be much more likely to improve quality of service. LOTS of paper cuts.
    • CPLX 8y ago
      I mean, you could look up those things and read a few blog posts and then do them. I’m not a lawyer either it’s not that complicated. You have to do a little research to figure out how to use the subway system or buy a car too. It’s just another system, isn’t this a board full of people who’ve taught themselves how to handle extraordinarily complex rules based systems? There’s something about legal stuff that makes people freeze up. Go to the courthouse, ask them, sign up for whatever volunteer lawyer help desk program they have (they almost always do) and figure it out. Takes an afternoon or two. Use Google. Harness the enemy’s powers against them.
    • 8y ago
• jlmorton 8y ago
  The service is tremendous, the support is terrible. My experience signing up definitely gave me pause about the service, but I have no complaints since. When I signed up for Fi on Black Friday, taking advantage of a great deal with $200 off the Pixel 3, and $200 in Google Fi credits, I mistakenly used a pre-populated shipping address to my work address in my order. That address was no longer valid, as my company had recently moved. When I got a shipping notification, I realized my mistake. I contacted FedEx to change the shipping address, but Google Fi had placed a restriction on their shipments that didn't allow recipients to change the shipping address. So I contacted Google Fi support. After waiting on hold for nearly two hours, I was told that since the product had already shipped, the issue would need to be escalated to their Shipping Specialists, who would contact me. Great. Two days later, the package arrived in my city, and FedEx noted a delivery exception, since the address was not occupied. I called Google Fi support again, and after waiting on hold for an hour, was told the issue had already been escalated. Several days later, after no progress, I chatted with Google Fi support again. No update, no ETA, they simply said the Shipping Specialists would get to it when they can. I contacted them again two days later. Same drill. No update, no ETA, no information, no ability to do anything except tell me to wait. About ten days after I first contacted them, and seven days after the package arrived in my city, FedEx returned the package to the sender. I contacted Google Fi again, and asked if they could send a replacement, now that the original was being returned. No dice. I'd have to wait for the Shipping Specialists. A few days later, the Shipping Specialists cancelled my order and refunded my payment, without ever talking to me. They advised me that I could place a new order. I replied asking if Google Fi would honor their promotional pricing, since the phone was now $200 more expensive, and the Google Fi credits had dropped from $200 to $100. They said they might, and they would escalate it to a manager if I purchased a new phone, and sent them the order details. So I did. Here was their reply about a week later: > Hi XXXXX, > My name is XXXXX and I'm a higher level Specialist here with Google Fi. I'm working directly with our Promotions Team to determine your eligibility for our "Pixel 3 / 3 XL $400 Back" promotion that was ongoing from November 22nd @ 11:00 PM PT - November 27th @ 11:59 PM PT. > After thoroughly reviewing your account, we have determined you are ineligible for an exception to this promotion. > Per the promotion terms: "Limited time offer available from 11/22/18 11:00 PM PT through 11/27/18 11:59 PM PT, or while supplies last" > Since your original order GS.XXXXXXXX was returned to shipper due to an incorrect shipping address, we are unable to provide an exception. Pretty amazing. I called Google Fi support five times over a 10 day period to try and get the shipping address changed. The original mistake was mine, but no one at Google Fi support was able to do anything about the problem until the phone was returned, and then they made no effort to rectify the situation. With that said, I'm quite happy with the phone and service - just not the support.
• rroblak 8y ago
  Google is, fundamentally, an engineering company. Despite their size and breadth, they still don't understand customer support. Their approach is to use software to solve problems, and they insist on doing so even when it's clear that software isn't up to the task. Unfortunately, customer support is a hard problem. Despite all of the advances in NLP, I still abhor automated customer support systems when I have a complex issue. Just let me talk to a human. Google long ago ran the numbers on providing human customer support and realized it's not the sort of ultra-scalable business function that they like to invest in. Rather, they'd like to believe that they can build software systems that don't require human customer support. As an end user, this feels like too much hubris and not enough empathy. It may work from the perspective of a product manager looking at percentages on a dashboard, but it sucks as someone in the real world trying to get something done with one of their products that's not functioning as it should. I use the full suite of Google Products, including Project/Google Fi. This article describes one of my nightmares— getting locked out of my Google account. I'm fortunate that I have good friends that work at Google that could help out in such a worst-case scenario. This blogger is fortunate, too. Undoubtedly, some Googler will read this post and help them out. But the average person isn't so lucky. If you're Jane or Joe Schmoe in Middle America, you're going to be screwed when your Google account goes haywire. I've had friends whose Google accounts have gotten into weird states that prevented them from using Google services for no obvious reason. I suspect this is due to an unfortunate consequence of Conway's Law [1] at work in Google's identity implementation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
  • r00fus 8y ago
    > Despite their size and breadth, they still don't understand customer support. Cue Larry Page's view on customer support circa 2000, and it still makes sense. Leaders fundamentally don't change views like that, and it impacts the organization - look at Zuckerberg's formative views on privacy.
    • hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      I didn't previously know what Larry Page's view on customer support circa 2000 was: But while it's easy to scoff at Page's quirks—his odd obsessions, his unrealistic expectations, his impatience for a future dangling out of immediate reach—sometimes his seemingly crazy ideas wind up creating breakthrough innovations, and skeptical Googlers wind up admitting Page was right, after all. That was the reaction in 2003 when Denise Griffin, the person in charge of Google's small customer-support team, asked Page for a larger staff. Instead, he told her that the whole idea of customer support was ridiculous. Rather than assuming the unscalable task of answering users one by one, Page said, Google should enable users to answer one another's questions. The idea ran so counter to accepted practice that Griffin felt like she was about to lose her mind. But Google implemented Page's suggestion, creating a system called Google Forums, which let users share knowledge and answer one another's customer-support questions. It worked, and thereafter Griffin cited it as evidence of Page's instinctive brilliance. https://www.wired.com/2011/03/mf-larrypage/ https://www.wired.com/2011/03/mf-larrypage/
• supernova87a 8y ago
  One of the realizations of operationalizing an algorithm / system is that designers / programmers rarely think of every way in which human beings do unexpected things with their system. And usually the enthusiasm is never as great to mop up the customer experience problems after the 99% is solved for.
• pcpcpc 8y ago
  Anecdotal evidence, but service was getting worse and worse with google fi (in San Francisco) over the past few months and I just switched to another carrier a few weeks ago. Calls were regularly dropping and data would cut in and out. (I scrolled through the comments and didn't see this anywhere else. I think it's worth mentioning. I will miss the international coverage and included hotspot... And as someone who is on WiFi most of the time, it was cheaper than any of the major carriers.)
• tinyhouse 8y ago
  I can relate. We have two Fi phones and there are bunch of problems: 1. If you use the max 10G every month it's pretty expensive. 2. Support is indeed bad. I once contacted them via the app and was told someone will reach out to me within 24 hours. No one did. 3. There are technical problems such as people calling me when I'm on wifi and they cannot hear me when I answer and instead go directly to voice mail. I was told to clear the cache but it's not always helpful. Things I like about Fi: 1. It's really nice that it works pretty much in every country. I travel often and it's supper convenient. (it's more expensive than getting a local sim in many countries but more convenient). 2. I don't need to listen to messages since they get transcribed automatically. (I'm assuming this is not a Fi only thing) So overall the main differentiation for me is the travel part. For people who don't travel out of the country the Fi doesn't provide anything special.
  • 1024core 8y ago
    > 1. If you use the max 10G every month it's pretty expensive. How can that be? They cap your bill at $60 (which you hit after using 6GB). https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/googles-project-fi-now-caps-data-bills-at-60/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/googles-project-fi-now-cap...
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • tinyhouse 8y ago
      It's 10G for two lines.
  • bduerst 8y ago
    That doesn't sound right, because Fi charges a metered flat rate per data used, there is no "Max 10GB". You may be misunderstanding how Fi data works. Fi's "max" is mostly there because consumers have learned that behavior from other carriers who like to charge overages - Fi refunds the metered data you don't use if you paid for 10 GB, and bills you at the same rate if you go over.
• exabrial 8y ago
  Yet another reason why "your phone number is your identity" (aka sms "2fA") is a horrible horrible horrible idea, especially for payment companies. If you're paying your cell bill with your credit card, and your credit card requires sms authentication, you've entered an infinite loop.
• saagarjha 8y ago
  Just switched to Google Fi, and while I haven't had any issues to the extent to which the author did, the I do agree that the support experience is not great. It's in line with most Google products.
• skolos 8y ago
  Throughout years Google showed that if you make any of their products essential for you, there is big chance you are going to be screwed. In the end all they care is web search.
• jessriedel 8y ago
  > Google Fi won’t restore service or allow your number to be ported out until the bill is paid, so around and around we go. I'm surprised this is legal. Number portability isn't something phone companies offer out of the kindness of their heart; it's required by law. Does the law really allow them to hold the number hostage as part of a payment dispute? EDIT: Nope, this is illegal: > Once you request service from a new company, your old company cannot refuse to port your number, even if you owe money for an outstanding balance or termination fee https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/porting-keeping-your-phone-number-when-you-change-providers https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/porting-keeping-your-ph... I looks like the OP should file a complaint (and if necessary sue?) over this point. Indeed, this is so clear cut it makes me doubt the OP's story. Does Google Fi say they do this anywhere?
  • jessriedel 8y ago
    This Reddit thread concluded that because a T-mobile account was suspended for non-payment and the number is unportable while suspended that the customer was out of luck. https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/4wotw8/tmobile_wont_let_me_port_my_number_due_to_overdue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/4wotw8/tmobile_won... I don't see how that matters legally. The FCC requirement doesn't make portability conditional on some account status defined by the carrier. But IANAL.
    • pxeboot 8y ago
      Since T-Mobile holds the primary numbers for Google Fi accounts, going from T-Mobile to Fi legally isn't a port, just a change in T-Mobiles billing system.
      • jessriedel 8y ago
        I was just using T-Mobile as another example. OP wants to move from Google Fi to something else, and the reddit poster wanted to move from T-Mobile to something else. I wasn't suggesting a port from T-Mobile to Fi.
      • toomuchtodo 8y ago
• sogrady 8y ago
  I can understand why people criticize it, but I personally like Fi. The multiple carriers give me coverage in areas I don't expect it like Maine islands or the Sangre de Cristo foothills, and the price is reasonable if not the lowest available. Additionally, the one time I've had to contact support, I had an email reply in 27 minutes. Throw in perks like the seamless international support (if you travel internationally at all this is tremendous) and the data SIM for an iPad, and I've been pretty happy with the service. That could all change the next time I need support if they're still overwhelmed with new users, but so far so good.
• 8ytecoder 8y ago
  Well, it will be fixed with the next rewrite of Google Payments/Wallet/Pay/Whatever.
• openloop 8y ago
  Phew look at the comments on this one google.
• chisleu 8y ago
  It routinely cost me so much in data that it was cheaper to get a Verizon unlimited data plan. That was the end of it for me.
  • bduerst 8y ago
    What is Verizon billing you? Verizon's "unlimited" plan is capped 22 GB and slows you down after. You get true unlimited data with Fi at $60 + $20 per line.
    • chisleu 8y ago
      When did they start that? I was paying $10/GB plus $20/mo. Also Google Fi slows data after 15GB... https://fi.google.com/about/plan/ https://fi.google.com/about/plan/ My Verizon plan is under $70 w/ the taxes/fees.
• sammycdubs 8y ago
  FWIW re: cell carriers in the US, I've found prepaid has worked really well for me at a much lower price than even something like Google Fi. I've been using Mint, and I pay $25 a month for a 10GB plan and it's worked great so far. I've heard their support isn't the best, but fortunately I've not had to deal with them yet.
• rmason 8y ago
  I've had accounts with Verizon, Sprint and tMobile. On their worst day Google Fi is head and shoulders above them, it's not even close. I've used cell phones for thirty years and my time on Fi is the most stress free in all that time. Having said that Google needs to do a better job at customer service. But so do Facebook and Amazon, both of which have caused me major problems.
  • aidenn0 8y ago
    Sprint support was incompetent, but they were at least as likely to make an error in your favor as not, so you could just call a couple times until you got the result you wanted. Verizon's support was mediocre, but it idn't take too much persistence to escalate things to someone who could actually make a decision. The recent stories I've heard of Fi's support make it sound like when something goes wrong, the easiest thing to do is to just open a new gmail account and switch to using that, which is a bit mind boggling.
    • rmason 8y ago
      I was in a Verizon store and was asked to leave or they'd call the police. My crime was to insist they honor a deal they advertised on their website. Offered to bring it up on one of their own computers when they insisted that I was wrong. Then I was asked not so politely to leave.
  • jdofaz 8y ago
    I think I am flagged as a profitable customer with T-Mobile because I never have to wait on hold and I always get excellent service.
• rkagerer 8y ago
  I've had edge case service nightmares with Google as well. Hate to say it but for a company that prides themselves on being smart, sometimes (just like in any other bureaucracy) they come across as really stupid.
• xibalba 8y ago
  I have had a similar recent experience with Fi after having used their service for three years now, and I would also no longer recommend Fi. This is very disappointing because Fi's customer service was once fantastic. I had many time consuming and useless interactions via phone, chat, and email with Fi's support reps over the course of a month to solve a simple issue. After growing increasingly frustrated, I requested that the issue be escalated to an employee with actual sway, but the reps refused to escalate it beyond one level up to a "specialist" who was of no help. I finally tracked down on LinkedIn a Fi higher up who works at the mothership in Mountain View (all contacts thus far were with what was clearly an offshore team). I DM'ed them directly via LinkedIn to explain my issue. This action resulted in a complete resolution of my problem within 5 days. This absolutely shouldn't be necessary to address what was a very straightforward problem, and does not augur well for Fi's future.
• honkycat 8y ago
  > We have submitted copies of his ID four times, my ID twice, multiple photos of credit cards, and various credit card statements. We’ve talked to agents and supervisors at Google Payments and Google Fi. No one is empowered to do anything, and even a well-intentioned agent doesn’t get the same answer from the “security department” twice. This was my EXACT experience with the google store. And Google Cloud gold level support. And google payments. Google just doesn't make good products. I am consistently astounded at how SHITTY the google home is. It STILL can't make a to-do list. The Google store sold me a defective pair of headphones. But the defect was due to a design flaw, so the headphones broke AGAIN after they sent me a new one. I then replaced my phone on warranty. Same headphone defect. So I was going through about one pair of headphones a month for four months[0]. I kept doing it because I enjoyed wasting google's money and abusing their bureaucracy, but I also REALLY wanted a working pair of headphones. Just a total nightmare. I once lost my tempter at the poor guy on the phone, and his response was: "Don't worry about it. You are handling this way better than I would." 0: Sometimes two!
• kuroop 8y ago
  This post is not surprising to me. Google product support team lacks empathy at a very fundamental level. Last year in middle somehow google's system decided to get me locked out of the old gmail account. I have all the phones which have ever been connected to it, and all emails I have had ever connected to it. But no! The only message I have got is, our security team will take 3-5 days to get back to you.
• m0zg 8y ago
  It always seemed like a rip-off to me, given that there existed a $120 per 4 lines T-Mobile plan with _global data_ for free and unlimited domestic data (well, speed is capped after 4GB per line, but still pretty decent). When abroad, data speeds aren't going to impress, but it's enough for email and maps and it works nearly everywhere. I'm not associated with T-Mobile and don't hold any of their stock. Just a satisfied customer.
• tarikozket 8y ago
  I switched to Google Fi from Verizon last month. I tested it in the Bay Area, Southern California and Florida. The service quality sucked unimaginably. I literally had to use my iPhone like an antenna in the office in San Francisco to have a phone call. The internet sucked badly as well. I switched back to Verizon and Google Fi made me feel thankful to have Verizon.
• Sodman 8y ago
  Came here to echo the drop in service quality complaint. I joined Fi in the early days. The first time I called in it was about some rather complex (to me) networking issues where the phone was rejecting a WiFi direct connection because it couldn't detect internet service on the other side or some such. I could swear I was talking to a network engineer - he was super helpful and very technical. And that was the guy who just picked up the phone, no escalation needed! Fast forward a few years and I had a minor question about a special promo they were running, connected to an offshore support team with broken English and copy/paste template responses that may as well have come from a chatbot.
• TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
  Holy shit! So Google has turned into the Comcast of 2019. Wow, it took just 19 years to go from the darling of the year 2000 ... DO NO EVIL ... to the WE DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT RUINING YOUR DIGITAL LIFE BECAUSE WE HAVE A POLICY AND PROCEDURE. I guess it really is inevitable. You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
• shhun 8y ago
  I'm a bit concerned about all the people here that tell they've been using Google services for decades and are afraid to loose their pictures/documents/etc... I mean how is giving such control over your data to one company a good idea in the first place ? I'm not saying that in patronizing way, but this should not be considered as normal behavior. I think that Google has already access to way much more data than it should and I really wouldn't want to hand them my phone bill. Even if you're not concerned about your privacy (and I really think you should), centralizing everything will only make problems worse if something happens with this one service, should it be Google, Apple or anyone else.
• TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
  If you want a cheap, fairly good mobile plan ... try Mint SIM. You can choose Verizon, AT&T, or TMobile networks. You prepay for your plans. A 5GB, unlimited call, unlimited text plan is about $15/month. The cheapest I've found. Only downside is my texts don't always download when I'm on Wifi, so sometimes I have to disconnect to download my texts, and then reconnect to wifi. Annoying but not a deal breaker.
• camdenlock 8y ago
  Things like this are why I've recently bailed on my Google account (including my decades-old gmail account). There ARE alternatives out there. I've been enjoying ProtonMail.
• wittedhaddock 8y ago
  FWIW I started a Google Fi competitor focused on providing competent service quickly: CommunityPhone.org
• b212 8y ago
  I'm always amazed how expensive mobile plans in the US are. Google Fi Unlimited + 6 GB of is $80 a month. In Poland you get the same for around $6.5, prepaid. On the other hand AT&T Prepaid $40 Monthly Plan has everything unlimited and 8 GB of data, so why would anyone use Google Fi?
• bane 8y ago
  I can. I don't want to take away from Google's user hostile practices etc., but Fi is kind of a must have for people who travel overseas frequently but don't stay in a particular country long enough to subscribe to the local mobile system. You can almost always find a better local deal that works great if you don't move around too much, but Fi is a fantastic "common denominator". Since I've had it I've traveled to...maybe 15 countries in Europe, Central America and Asia and it's worked amazingly well and turned otherwise expensive roaming charges or juggling of sims into normal operations. It has a weird kind of "global citizen" feel to it that I've never felt any other way. Step off the plane, turn your phone off airplane mode and you're good to go. Driving across Europe and I received "welcome to <country>" while using Google maps just like driving across the U.S. where it says "welcome to <state>". It's also pretty cheap, even if you blow your usage caps and try to go unlimited (Google will cap the charges at some point). If you stay in one place or travel abroad rarely, I'd say skip it, you can get a local provider with more service cheaper. But if you might end up in an unknown country and just don't want the hassle, it's pretty awesome.
• ta1234567890 8y ago
  About a year ago I tried getting Google Fi. Ordered a phone online, paid about $300. Then it never arrived. When I talked to support, first they made me wait for about a week to confirm on their end that the phone was lost. Then their only solution was to process a refund (which took them another week to do), after which I would've had to purchase the same phone again. Talked to a bunch of their support staff to no avail. They just would not send another phone. Seems like completely the opposite of what Amazon would have done (and probably the main reason why I'm a happy Amazon customer after over a decade, whereas I never looked back after the bad experience with Google Fi).
• hi41 8y ago
  I had a lot of issues with getting Google Fi. On Wi-Fi the calls wouldn’t go through. If it did the quality of voice was not good. When receiving calls there was a delay after I accept the call when the caller couldn’t hear me. When my wife was in Manhattan her phone stopped working completely. she had to use the phone of her friend to call me. And we moved from iPhone to android and we hated the experience.
• ryanmercer 8y ago
  I've been with them for 3 years and change, the entire time it's very much been an iffy beta-feeling product. shrugs the price is worth the inconveniences I've experienced.
• eisa01 8y ago
  The EU should introduce some Digital Consumer Rights to put a stop to these arbitrary black holes you can get into with internet giants. Would surely be a positive measure?
• killjoywashere 8y ago
  Ah, I live on a small island in the Pacific and just got back from Thailand. Having Google Fi has been an absolute game changer. Would having a back-up payment method set have solved something like this?
• bubblethink 8y ago
  Isn't a more fundamental reason to not use fi is that it's not a real phone network ? Nobody other than google can operate a client as intended on the fi network. The network switching stuff isn't a standard or open source AFAIK. It's not a part of AOSP. Only google's licensed devices get that logic as a part of google play services. All other devices will operate in degraded mode where you are basically using a single carrier just like other carriers. So why bother ?
• throw7 8y ago
  I think this is a very good example of PRIVATE vs. GOVERNMENT. Google has set up a service that is usable/payable by their own rules. This is something we (U.S.) take as verboten as a private business. They can discriminate on any reason except as dictated as against governance(race/age/religion/etc). If you've been detected by google as "fraudulent" by google, then there is zero recourse for you. Goodbye to your google account. If the U.S. government is not going to do anything about this (it has not shown any interest in this type of problem) then YOU need to be proactive. Be ready to change services to the private businesses that you interact with AND/OR speak with your representatives of your government.
• antichaos 8y ago
  Google Fi's international data service used to be great. Now it's completely dysfunctional in countries such as Croatia, China, etc, and very spotty in Austria, Iceland, Philippines, Ecuador, northern Japan etc. I can no longer rely on Fi when I travel abroad.
• TomMckenny 8y ago
  Is there some disadvantage to using a dedicated Google account solely for Google Fi?
• sbr464 8y ago
  I’ve tried it and overall found the service spotty in Denver, and typically a notch lower (technical term) on whatever speed compared to Verizon etc, when traveling internationally. I will admit that initial tech support experiences were unsustainably amazing.
• your-nanny 8y ago
  on plus side, Google asked the cell companies not to cell Fi customers location data...
• andrewaylett 8y ago
  For all that "legal tender" as a concept is so often misused, this is actually pretty much the poster-child case where it's necessary: you one someone money and they're refusing to accept payment. Offer them some legal tender, they're required to accept _that_ in payment of your debt. Of course, Google being a tech company that might not motivate them to solve their tech problems so it might not fix their other account issues. But it really should fix the phone company side of the problem, allowing the number to be ported out. Or maybe I'm overly optimistic.
• hogu 8y ago
  Is anyone using GCE? This is making me pretty worried. I'm operating a jupyter notebook service where every user gets their own volume. If my account was suspended and we no longer have access to user data that would be terrible. We can try backing data out to AWS but the egress fees would add up
• BuffaloBagel 8y ago
  US citizen here. I was in Mozambique, England, Romania and Denmark with my Fi phone in 2017. Despite being listed as a country Fi covered, I could never get service in Mozambique (Beria), despite spending a few hours with several courteous Google Fi customer support people. My experience in the European countries was satisfactory. I don't recall any issues and it was nice to have my US phone number just work in those places. An earlier trip in 2016 to Tajikistan in central Asia with my Fi phone required purchasing a local SIM card. I've since given up on Google Fi and switched my number back to Verizon and have been happily using a $200 Moto G5 Plus purchased through Amazon.
• overtmind 8y ago
  Anyone notice a theme here? Every failure of google has something to do with the fact that they're automating so far that it ends up being downright harmful. Youtube, Google Pay, Google Cloud, etc I've even heard of similar stories about using Google Cloud, where the system can flag your account and basically your entire business is deleted due to an automated process! https://medium.com/@serverpunch/why-you-should-not-use-google-cloud-75ea2aec00de https://medium.com/@serverpunch/why-you-should-not-use-googl... Though they seem to have reigned that in a bit here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/18/google_cloud_platform_account_suspensions/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/18/google_cloud_platfo... I get the feeling in the short term they'll double-down on automation/AI until it's good enough nobody notices. I wonder if they have a pulse on how their businesses are suffering because of that perception, though. When your company has a stigma of it being nearly impossible to reach a human being to get things done - is it really a surprise that my colleagues and I won't recommend google cloud as a service provider?
• mattfaus 8y ago
  Would adding multiple payment methods to your google payments account mitigate the risk here?
• ogn3rd 8y ago
  I quit a couple years ago when my phone left me in a position where I could not get any connectivity from the TMobile or Sprint towers, nor wifi. They tried to use the excuse that it was tower maintenance yet couldn't explain why wifi connectivity wouldn't work. As someone who is on call 24/7/365 it was unacceptable and I moved to another provider. Their phone support was absolutely useless.