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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.

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.