
Project Fi Review: Cell Service from Google - nkurz
http://www.paulkuehnel.com/full-google-project-fi-review-a-multiple-cell-phone-network/
======
exacube
The craziest part of Project Fi is that phone calls and network connections do
not drop at all while it is switching carriers/WIFI underneath -- there is a
lot of low-level networking magic happening here, and the crux of this tech. I
hope some day Google will release some code or white paper on this.

\- I'd love to read a more indepth analysis about how /well/ this
interface/service provider-switching works. \- I want to know if the
signal/coverage is comparable or better than Verizon (which IMO has the best
quality+coverage in the parts of the US that I've travelled; all over the west
coast & hawaii).

~~~
modeless
You mean they've solved the problem where your phone is useless for 30 seconds
after you walk out of your house and lose WiFi? I'd almost switch for that
feature alone, if true.

~~~
Bognar
Unfortunately, no. I have Project Fi and this is still an issue. They may only
have this feature when actually on a call, since I imagine it uses a lot of
power to constantly poll for the power of networks. I can still hope that
they'll fix it though.

~~~
BrianEatWorld
Could you go more in-depth on your experiences here? Your opinion seems to
differ with the review, which refers to it as seamless. It is the main feature
I am interested in as I get anywhere from two to zero bars in my apartment
complex but have a fairly strong router and would love to have it transition
without dropping as I am walking home.

~~~
Bognar
If I am on a call, it's seamless - no issues there. However, it doesn't seem
to work for data in general.

I commonly try to get Google Maps directions as I leave the house, and often
it just fails since it's still trying to use my WiFi which is too far away to
be useful.

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pfooti
Huh, the part where you can either keep your original handset phone number or
your GV number on one account (but not both) is problematic. I've been trying
to get people to call and text my GV number for ages, but some still use my
legacy handset number. From the sounds of it, I'll have to do some juggling to
keep the two numbers, or just let my old handset number lapse back into the
pool, as I can't keep both on the same google account.

Not quite a deal-breaker, but a big enough deal that I will think carefully
after my invite shows up (if it ever shows up). OTOH, the pricing model
represents something like $30 or more a month cheaper than what I'm currently
paying.

I wonder if there are any phone number parking services - I'd pay a modest
monthly fee to hook my old number up to a personalized "this number has
changed, please call XYZ" and an SMS autoresponder with similar information.

~~~
techsupporter
> I wonder if there are any phone number parking services - I'd pay a modest
> monthly fee to hook my old number up to a personalized "this number has
> changed, please call XYZ" and an SMS autoresponder with similar information.

ring.to does this for free for US numbers down to the SMS autoreply. They're
actually run by the same company (Bandwidth.com) that Google uses for service
in a lot of area codes.

~~~
kolev
What is the price of the ring.to service? They did every effort to advertise
pricing or if it's a free service (which I doubt).

~~~
techsupporter
ring.to is free. I have five numbers parked there (but am otherwise
unaffiliated). They make their money by, I assume, connection fees paid by
other phone companies whose customers call numbers parked at ring.to.

------
eatonphil
I had been using Republic Wireless for the past year. It also tries to keep
you in WiFi (at all costs). This is in return for a flat rate of $30/mo with
unlimited text, talk, and data. (Data gets limited after 5 gigs though.)

This was a great service when I was in college. I stayed on one network the
whole time. But after I left school and started The Commute things got hairy.

I switched to Google Fi about a week ago and the service is already much more
incredible. But this is no surprise, I pay a lot more for it too.

If you are debating between services like Google Fi and Republic Wireless, I
would suggest Republic Wireless is a better choice for someone who doesn't do
a lot of daily travel. It's cheaper and definitely good enough, fairly
seamless and whatnot. However, for anyone doing any nontrivial amount of daily
travel, I highly recommend going with a provider not /hell-bent/ on getting
you on WiFi. Google Fi seems to be a good alt.

~~~
mklim
> But after I left school and started The Commute things got hairy.

> I switched to Google Fi about a week ago and the service is already much
> more incredible.

Do you mind explaining this further—you mean calls/texts were getting dropped
while you were on the road with RW? I'm trying to decide between Republic
Wireless and Project Fi myself, I've got about a 30 minute commute each way.

~~~
eatonphil
To be honest I really don't recommend it. With RW, they will force you to join
any nearby Wifi network - even if it requires you to accept its ToS and you
haven't done this. So if you are waiting for Amtrak and the opposing train
pulls up for 2 minutes, you are switched onto this network. Or if you are in a
bus on the highway in traffic and you pass a Wifi hotspot, it will switch you
onto it... Even if you turned off Wifi. It constantly turned on Wifi even when
you explicitly tell it not to. Google Fi has not done this so far. And, if the
public Wifi requires me to accept some ToS, Google Fi will keep me on 3G until
I have accepted the ToS and am /actually/ on the internet via the public wifi.
So, in the end, RW really pissed me off. Still, it is a cheaper service and as
a college student it was all I needed. I stayed on one network 24/7 and had no
complaints at the time.

Edit: One thing about being forced to switch to a network is that it is silent
and you don't necessarily know if you are connected to the internet or not. So
if you walk into a Starbucks that has public wifi and your wifi is turned off,
your wifi will be turned on and you will have no internet connection until you
accept Starbucks' ToS. This has left me very confused before missing messages,
calls, etc.

~~~
nkurz
I'm confused. I've been a Republic Wireless customer for about a year now, and
I've never noticed any pressure to use an open network. My home network is the
only wireless network to which my phone will automatically switch. When I'm
away from my house, I remain on 3G unless I explicitly choose to connect to
another network. It will attempt to reconnect to a network that I've used in
the past, but one can stop this by 'forgetting' the network in Android
settings.

Maybe I have a different phone? I'm using a 3G Moto G. Maybe I turned off
something in settings? I have not rooted the phone, but certainly may have
changed something from the standard settings menus. Here's someone else
agreeing that your Republic Wireless phone should never connect automatically
to a new network:
[https://community.republicwireless.com/thread/26466](https://community.republicwireless.com/thread/26466)

I think you were either experiencing a bug that has since been fixed, or you
were running some other app that was automatically approving the connections
(like Wifi+). I would not discourage anyone from using Republic Wireless due
to this worry. At least currently, you are never forced to use any wireless
network that you do not want to use.

~~~
eatonphil
As jerf mentioned in the sibling comment, it appears my experience is not
representative. I also had the Moto G, first generation? I had it for about a
year and a half. Maybe I screwed something up in my settings too. I definitely
would love to have had a different experience! I can't comment on why the
things happened as they did. But for whatever reason on my phone I definitely
had a bunch of issues. Maybe there was an issue with the radio hardware on
mine? Not sure.

------
loganfsmyth
I switched to Fi about a month ago and it has served me very well in the Bay
area so far, and it made a trip to the east coast with good wifi and bad cell
service much easier because I could just use wifi.

Also liking the Nexus 6. After playing with a coworkers a little I decided I
was fine with the size and after a month I'm still very happy with it. I
upgraded from a Galaxy Nexus.

Please who doesn't love being able to ditch Verizon.

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gst
I got a Fi invite a few weeks ago, but right now the main reason why I don't
use it is that the Nexus 6 appears to be too big (I still have a Nexus 5 and
the size is perfect). Probably going to wait for this year's Nexus refresh
before I make the switch.

~~~
modeless
I was happy with the Nexus 5 and initially didn't want a Nexus 6 because I
didn't think it would fit in my pockets. I was wrong. The Nexus 6 fits in the
pockets of every pair of pants I own. I actually appreciate the bigger battery
even more than the bigger screen.

~~~
myth_buster
Well, Nexus 7 fits into every trouser pocket I own but I think the issue with
Nexus 6 is using it with one hand where you cannot cover/access the whole
screen with your thumb.

------
dnquark
I hope Project Fi has a side effect of improving existing Google Voice /
Hangouts integration. While it's been slowly getting better, some of my texts
sent via GV in Hangouts never get delivered, some arrive out of order. In
addition, I've been able to crash Hangouts reliably and reproducibly (in
latest version, by picking a GV sms conversation, pulling up the other
person's contact card (by tapping their avatar) and selecting "send hangouts
message"). And we still have no group SMS integration in GV.

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czardoz
Wow $10 for 1GB of data? Is this normal pricing in the US? Here in India, I
pay ~₹170 (~$3) for that.

~~~
bambax
Here in France I pay 20 EUR (<$25) per month for unlimited voice and SMS, +
20Go data.

This is way over my needs BTW, I never exceeded 5Go in any given month in two
years, except one month when I bought a new laptop and left Dropbox sync it
over phone tethering. I then discovered that there was no way to buy more
data, which was a bit frustrating...

~~~
papul1993
Is unlimited voice really that necessary? I see a lot of plans in European
countries and US that mostly give unlimited calls for those amounts of money.
And who uses SMS anyway when you have Whatsapp, Hangouts, iMessage, FB
Messenger etc.

~~~
nissehulth
Good question, I guess there are still people that talk to each other, but I
believe the unlimited sms/voice is just a sales pitch for the plan. They don't
really expect you to use it.

In my current plan I have 5000 free SMS per month. That's just silly, I'm not
sure if I have even sent that many SMS in total since I got my first GSM phone
in the early 90s. :)

But as long as the price for the data plan is good, I don't really care what
else they tack on to it.

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callesgg
One needs an email address that ends with gmail.com to request access, that
sucks. I have a google apps email address.

~~~
Navarr
Yeah we get the short end of the stick for things in "Beta."

Still don't have package tracking inside Google Wallet.. but they did finally
start showing up in Google Now! Exciting.

~~~
chinpokomon
Inbox... That was a happy day when they turned on that tap.

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machrider
Any idea if they're layering any additional security onto the unsecured WiFi
connections it seems to prefer? (attwifi, xfinitywifi, etc. are all
unencrypted, and I personally only use them in very limited ways for that
reason.)

~~~
kkielhofner
VoLTE over IP implementations typically establish an IPSEC VPN back to the
operator network, authenticated using the SIM with EAP:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Prot...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Protocol#EAP-
SIM)

~~~
machrider
That makes sense. I'm also curious about data though. Unless they tunnel all
your traffic through a VPN, you just have to hope your apps and web sites are
using https correctly. (And if they did tunnel all traffic through Google
servers, it would raise a different set of concerns...)

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boardwaalk
I signed up for an invite, but honestly I don't see why I'd want this over my
current service, Ting, which does basically the same thing (an pay-what-you-
use MVNO with nice app integration) and is already available for any band-
capable phone (I'm using a T-Mo iPhone 5S right now). And, there is a WiFi
calling toggle in the app that was off by default for me.

In all honestly I'd rather use less Google-things than more.

The typical month costs me $26 before taxes, by the way.

------
obstinate
I was on this service for some time as a tester. Because I'm a dabbling
minimalist and frugal enthusiast, I got my cellular data down below 250MB per
month. As far as I can tell, there isn't a plan out there that can beat $22.50
per month.

Imo the big downfall is the requirement to use a Nexus 6. It's not a bad
phone, but it also isn't terribly good. I recently went back to iPhone and
joined another slightly higher but still low-cost carrier.

~~~
thisisandyok
Do you mind sharing which carrier you have now? I've been looking at switching
to one of the lower cost carriers, but haven't seen one that supports the
iPhone.

~~~
obstinate
Cricket and Ting both support iPhone. If you have an iPhone below 6, you need
Ting if it's a T-Mobile iPhone and Cricket if it's an AT&T. I think you can
use Ting with the CDMA iPhones. I'm on cricket personally.

------
Yhippa
> I am slowly working people back to my handset number on project Fi phone for
> texting because it works in my primary Gmail account and I can continue to
> match my text messages on the desktop with the Chrome extension.

Does this mean that GV will be using your old phone number that you posted
over from a carrier? And that us Android folk can have iMessage-like
functionality finally?

~~~
modeless
You've been able to port cell numbers to Google Voice for quite some time now,
independent of Project Fi. It's a $20 one-time fee. You get all your SMS, MMS,
and voicemail messages in Hangouts, both on phone and desktop. Replying to SMS
and reading transcribed voicemail on a desktop is quite nice. You can also
make and receive voice calls from your number on desktop as well.

Since GV is a cloud service and independent of your phone, you can do all of
these things from a desktop even if your phone has no service or a dead
battery. For example, if you are overseas and you don't have cell service you
can use WiFi to send and receive calls and SMS, from your phone or your
laptop, using your normal number. Of course you get all other Google Voice
features like call recording, ringing multiple phones, sending specific
numbers to voicemail, low international rates, etc.

You can also use Hangouts Dialer to make Google Voice calls over data from
your phone, without using plan minutes. This is optional, but it has the
advantage that you can use T-Mobile's $30 unlimited data plan as an unlimited
everything plan and potentially save a ton of money. Data service is not as
reliable as native voice, but cutting your bill in half is pretty compelling.

Downsides are few. The big one used to be that MMS didn't work, but it's
finally fixed. There may still be some oddities with group MMS in Hangouts.
The Hangouts Android app kinda sucks, but there's supposedly a redesign on the
way. SMS happens over your data connection, which is less reliable in places
with bad service like crowded stadiums. Porting your number will end your
current carrier contract and you'll have to start a new one if you want to
continue using your cell phone; depending on your contract this may cause
early termination fees and/or your cell phone may be unusable for a few hours
during the transfer.

~~~
icelancer
I do this with T-Mobile. The downsides are once per year my phone number is
literally banned and I cannot text or call for a few hours for absolutely no
reason. It's supposedly due to anti-spam issues and obviously there is zero
support on this, so you just have to suck it up while you are banned for an
arbitrary amount of time for an unknown reason.

~~~
modeless
I've never had any issues like this on T-Mobile.

~~~
icelancer
It was GV that banned me, not T-Mobile - sorry if that was not clear.

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Aloha
I really wonder which network is the primary voice bearer, Sprint or T-Mobile

~~~
arjunnarayan
I have had a Fi phone for a few weeks, and it seems pretty agnostic between
the two networks - it just takes the one with the strongest signal at any
given point in time. I believe under the hood it is connected to both all the
time, and selecting which one to use in software (and reevaluating this
decision on the order of seconds).

~~~
lucaspiller
The Google MVNO probably just has roaming contracts with both - this sort of
thing is part of the GSM standard. In the UK Three and EE apparently share
their networks, even though they are two completely separate companies [0].

[0]
[http://m.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/04/three_and_ee_to_share_...](http://m.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/04/three_and_ee_to_share_networks/)

~~~
Aloha
Except Sprint is CDMA, and T-Mobile is GSM - again, for data its easy to do,
both networks can use the same APN, so handoff is seamless and transparent,
for voice, its less so.

~~~
profmonocle
It's less of a problem if they're using voice over LTE. Although it would
still be an issue in areas without LTE coverage on one or both networks.

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enlightenedfool
Got an invite, but don't know why I would switch from current $50 unlimited
talk/text + 5GB data and my Galaxy Nexus still works fine.

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dimino
> rather than just cold cocking support

Heh, typo that might be worth fixing. :)

------
sbierwagen

      The Nexus 6 is mostly like a very large Moto X, adding 
      some very sweet front facing stereo speakers making the 
      Netflix experience on a phone like a small theater. 
    

Bullshit.

