Google is finally stepping into the cellular service provider industry with Project Fi. Google has partnered up with Sprint and T-Mobile to use their cell towers to provide their own service. The technology involved that makes this work is what is new and interesting.
Network
With the network setup, nobody should ever have an issue of no bars. The Fi network will be covering over 120 countries, so going to another country means your phone will still work! The Fi network will switch between Sprint, T-Mobile, and open WiFi networks depending on which one has the strongest signal at the time. The only time you will not have 4G LTE service is when you are outside both of Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks. You get the benefits of using two separate services for the price of one. When you are on a phone call and switch between networks or get into a WiFi signal, your call will continue and the networks will switch without you even noticing. Another thing to note, when you are on an open WiFi network, phone calls and text messages will be encrypted as a standard.
Pricing
For just $20 with Fi, you get unlimited domestic talk and text, unlimited international texts, WiFi tethering, and low-cost international calls. Fi will charge an additional $10 per month for each GB of data you want. Now that doesn’t sound too great, but here is where Fi shakes things up a bit. Any unused data will be refunded back to your account. Meaning, if you pay for 5 GB of data and only use 4.5 GB, you will be refunded $5 for that unused data. While being on a WiFi network, you will not be charged for the data being used. It is astonishing that it took this long for phone companies to come up with a concept that benefits the consumer for once.
Benefits of Fi and Hangouts
With Hangouts, anyone can get all of their texts, phone calls, and voice chats to their phone/tablet/laptop and will all be synced together. No more needing to run and find your phone just to read a text that says “k”. This means you will be able to make phone calls and text from not only your phone, but as well as your tablet and computer.
The downside right now is that this service is currently invite only and will only work with Google’s Nexus 6. There are rumors out that Google will be coming out with another Nexus phone later this year and will be supported on the Fi network. Invites are said to be going out on a weekly basis. Google states that you should expect your invite about a month from when requested. Google will not pay for your current cell phone providers cancellation fees, this is the only thing that is deterring me from joining this network right away. Let me know your opinions in the comments below, I would love to hear what other people think!
Tech Refreshed 