Hey all,

Today I want to share my thoughts about Project Fi (referral link), which I used in the past as an international data plan source and recently fully joined the program.

At a Glance

• Automatically uses three different carriers within the US: Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular.
• Dead simple plan: 20$ for phone/text, and 10$/1GB data used.
  • Additional family members can be added for 15$ extra on phone/text.
• International Roaming at the same rates, which is 10$/1GB of data.
• Automatic switching to WiFi hotspots to conserve on data, and can be used for calling also.

Experience

So far my experience has been quite positive with these features. I like that I only pay what I use, and I'm pretty careful about avoiding the data guzzlers when I'm on the data network, and so far I've saved quite a bit compared to my previous plan with Verizon.

I've also had positive experiences with the WiFi switching. In New York we have the subway Wifi spots that require you to login almost every station sometimes. Google's Wifi assistant helps with that and just connects it, which is great (though there are times where this integration is not perfect, but I suspect it had more to do with the hotspot itself).

One complaint I've heard from others before is that Project Fi has a tendency to drop calls, but so far I have not experienced that yet. It's possible there was a significant improvement since the complaint. You can also see the coverage map here. Just type your zip code and you can see. And hey, if you have T-Mobile, this is a strict improvement in coverage, given that they add 2 more to the mix.

International Data Plan

I traveled to Austria relatively recently, and signed up for Project Fi to try out the international roaming. Buying data services abroad is fairly expensive, and even with the 20$ initial phone/text portion, I would come out ahead. While I was there, I was able to get high speeds as well, in contrast to T-Mobile's unlimited plan that contains international roaming at slower speeds.

I did not want to fully switch, and I had an existing Google Voice number, so I opted to use that as my number while keeping my existing number with my older plan for the time being. That worked well enough.

I actually wanted to do the same when I went to Taiwan, but I mistakenly thought I could reactivate my sim card from when I went to Austria before, but it was not the case. Because I cancelled when I returned from Austria, the sim card became defunct, and rejoining would require shipping a new Sim card, which I did not have time to wait for.

A tip my friend told me was that you could simply suspend the plan, and reactivate it on a need basis. Very useful if I need to do that, but actually I fully converted now, so I do not need to do this.

Converting Existing Numbers and a Google Voice Oddity

If you want to switch over an existing number, you have to give up your google voice number. I did not want to lose the number because it's a nice number, and useful sometimes for alternative signups. They do allow you to keep it by transferring the Google Voice number to a different Google account. So what I did was that I created a new google account just to house my Google Voice number, and then followed their procedure to transfer.

Restrictions

And yes, Project Fi is currently restricted to those with a Home Address in the US. Took me awhile to find the criteria, but they are listed here. So in theory if you can figure out how to piggyback off someone's US address you could use it abroad. I've seen posts about even being able to activate Project Fi simcards internationally, like this one. Google search is pretty helpful as usual.

Only certain phones (Google Nexus, Pixel, etc), though there are reports that it can be used even for iPhones. I personally have a Pixel 2 phone.

Referral Fun

I missed out in multiple ways on this, but last December they had a Fi it Forward Referral Contest. You could win prizes for helping spread the word about Project Fi. And this was on top of the existing referral bonus where both sides of a referral would get 20$ credit on their Project Fi plans.

I had decided to make the switch during this time, but for some funny reason, I could not find a referral. People seemed to be posting their referral links like crazy everywhere, and there's even a subreddit for it. And you could search twitter and facebook for similar codes. None of them worked for me.

So I went without, but later did end up posting my own referral in some of those locations, and now I am leaving one at the bottom of this post as well.

I also found out later that my parents switched too, but didn't tell me about it otherwise we both could have used a referral. Humph. Ah well.

Other Bonus

They also had offers to buy Pixel 2 in exchange for a 100$ Project Fi credit, and that was very tempting so I did it. My older phone was the Nexus 6p and that had its share of problems that I had to send to the repair twice, which was not so fun. I don't think the offer is still available, but I'm sure they'll have similar ones in the future.

Summary

So far I am loving the service, and if you are in the US where they offer good coverage, it may be something to consider. It may even be worth just using the international roaming part, which is a comparatively cheap for data plan. I hope they can extend this to other countries as well, and it sounds like that's the direction this project is heading.

Let me know if you have any other questions about the service that I might be able to answer.

And feel free to use my referral code: MDM744