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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 LT

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.

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.