[Orson]

Google Fi? $40 per month!

Here's a visit to London report (before the new widening of phone options available). The author was going to go with T-Mobile for Int'l travel, but decided for Google Fi:

Google’s Project Fi abroad. 6 surprises: 3 good and 3 bad. 26Nov18 by Greg

[Note: his written conclusions - as "Overall Impressions," quoted BELOW - are more nuanced than the body of his review which is pretty pleased and impressed.]

Quote:

To meet my needs, the best alternatives to AT&T seem to be T-Mobile or Google’s Project Fi [the brand name used until now, which drops "Project"]. T-Mobile includes free low-speed international data with most of their plans and charges only $5 per day for high speed roaming. Project Fi includes high speed roaming with their one and only plan. Partly for the allure of high speed roaming everywhere, and partly to appease the tech geek in me, I decided to try Project Fi. See: International Roaming Next Steps (I’ll try Project Fi).

I initially tried Fi only within the US and I was happy with the service. See: My Google Fi Experience So Far.

Now, I’ve had the opportunity to try Fi outside of the US (that was the whole point of it after all), and the verdict is in…

Phones used? Moto G6, with a number ported over from AT&T; and then an iPhone 7 with a sim card - the body of review omitted....

Quote:

Overall Impressions

While I’ve run into a few minor inconveniences, I’m still satisfied with the move to Project Fi even though I continue to use a non-supported iPhone as my primary phone.

That said, the truth is that most people would be better off with T-Mobile. This is especially true for iPhone users. With T-Mobile, there’s no need to have a special phone, and there’s no need to specially configure the phone for everything to work correctly. And, most of the time, T-Mobile’s low speed free data roaming is probably good enough for your needs. When it’s not enough, simply fork over $5 to enable high speed roaming for 24 hours.

So, who is Fi good for?

Pixel Phone users: Anyone with a Fi compatible phone should consider the service. Why not?

AT&T and Verizon customers: Ironically, I think it is also good for those who don’t want to switch to T-Mobile from AT&T or Verizon or whatever. The reason: once you’ve activated service, you can pause it at any time. So, if you buy a cheap Fi-compatible phone, you can use it as a very effective hotspot when traveling outside the country. If you need data for more than 3 or 4 days, you’ll save money by resuming Fi service only when traveling vs. using AT&T’s or Verizon’s $10 day passes. I think that this may be a cheaper and better roaming solution than buying a dedicated hotspot, but it will require carrying around a bigger device (the phone).

Those who spend lots of time outside of the US: T-Mobile’s free roaming isn’t intended to be used full time. If you use their roaming feature continuously for about 2 months, you’re likely to get a message threatening to cut off your roaming altogether. If there’s any similar limitation to Project Fi, I’m not aware of it.

https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/g...xperience/

I've had T-Mobile with Microsoft phone (Nokia brand). But since I'm sitting on a compatible Chinese made Samsung Galaxy 9 knock-off (the Plus One 5T), I expect to give the admittedly "EVIL" Google Fi a try, soon.

Check out the lengthy, full review if you are tempted by the Devil.