AppleInsider Staff
Owners of Google's Android flagship Nexus 6 smartphone now have a new option for wireless service, as the company officially announced its long-awaited mobile service, dubbed Project Fi, on Wednesday.
Project Fi subscribers will pay a base fee of $20 per month, which includes unlimited domestic voice calling and SMS, along with the ability to tether other devices to their handset via Wi-Fi. Data will cost $10 per gigabyte per month, and the company will adopt a "pay for what you use" data billing policy.
For instance, customers who sign up for 3 gigabytes of data each month — Â which would cost $30 — Â but use just 1.4 gigabytes would receive a rebate of $16, the company said. Project Fi subscribers can choose data plans up to 10 gigabytes per month in 1-gigabyte increments.
Perhaps most interestingly, international data roaming will be included at no extra charge in more than 120 countries, though it will be limited to 3G speeds. International calling will cost just 20 cents per minute, and international SMS will be free.
Project Fi will be limited to consumers in the U.S. at launch, and Google says that their handset will automatically switch between Wi-Fi, Sprint, and T-Mobile, depending on which service offers the strongest signal in a particular location. A Nexus 6 is required, as Google says it is the only handset with the requisite combination of hardware and software.
Interested consumers can sign up for an early access invitation now.
Andrew O'Hara
Amber Neely
Oliver Haslam
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
85 Comments
[quote name="sog35" url="/t/185916/google-announces-project-fi-mobile-phone-network-for-nexus-6-owners#post_2713861"]Not that great. I pay $50 a month for T-mobile unlimited 4G-LTE data [/quote] I pay TMo a little less than that (three lines) but I don't consider it unlimited LTE data. https://support.t-mobile.com/message/395236 As far as Google's plan don't you think the roaming will be appealing to travelers?
Wow, if it's all as promised, I've got to say that that's pretty nice. A family of four will pay $80, plus, say another $50 or so for data (for example, our family of four uses almost never uses more than 4GB - 5GB a month, if that). That's substantially less than what ATT charges, esp. if a couple of phones in the family plan are current models.
The international features on top of that are an excellent saving too.
I don't care if it means following Google's lead in this instance, but Apple should really do something similar and disrupt carriers.
Not that great.
I pay $50 a month for T-mobile unlimited 4G-LTE data
Yeah, T-mobile is still beating Fi on the numbers, but it will be interesting to see how it shakes out using the best signals from two major networks. T-mobile coverage is not great between cities, but has been improving significantly every year. One of their support techs told me that by the end of the year, all of their old 2G towers would be converted to 4G LTE.
I was on the TMob $50/month plan too, but the minutes limit was getting me. [EDIT] I got my plan mixed up. The old $30/month minutes limit was cramping my style. The $50/month plan was cramping my style with the throttling[/EDIT] Now my oldest son and I are on the $100/month plan with unlimited everything, and at full 4G LTE speeds with no throttling. That one's going to be tough to beat. It was also nice to show up in Cairo and be almost instantly connected and talking internationally for only $0.20 minute.
This can't go too far unless Google adds other phones including iPhone to work on their Project experiment wireless service. Otherwise it is bound to fail like Project Glass.
Who the hell came up with that name?!