Being in Germany and being able to call home to the US for free as long as I have an internet connection is that itself such a worthwhile thing. And calls to Germany (where I am) being a penny a minute is just so valuable.
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# ? Oct 5, 2016 18:10 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:00 |
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Since Fi charges the same amount per GB of you go over your plan, is there any actual reason to not take the 1GB option?
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# ? Oct 6, 2016 02:33 |
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NAT-T Ice posted:Since Fi charges the same amount per GB of you go over your plan, is there any actual reason to not take the 1GB option? You get alerts when you approach or exceed your application. I just bumped mine to 2gb for just that reason.
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# ? Oct 6, 2016 02:41 |
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More or less, the only reason is really if you want to budget more in advance.
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# ? Oct 6, 2016 02:41 |
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NAT-T Ice posted:Since Fi charges the same amount per GB of you go over your plan, is there any actual reason to not take the 1GB option? I don't think so, especially since you can set data amount alerts directly on your phone.
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# ? Oct 6, 2016 13:39 |
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Whoops, looks like I'm an idiot! You can't set your data to zero gigs, and some forum posts I found say that the data charge doesn't have tax applied to it. Lutha Mahtin fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Oct 6, 2016 |
# ? Oct 6, 2016 16:47 |
Hello thread. I'm on the cusp of pulling the trigger on a 5x and getting in on this. Some probably stupid questions: I'm on T-Mobile, and growing increasingly annoyed by their poor coverage here, and refusal to even let me BUY roaming access without ditching my grandfathered plan. My primary concern is usable data access in as many places as possible as I do on-site work in a variety of really rural & remote areas. Speed and total usage is a secondary concern. I saw this question on page 1 but it's also a year old - if I'm on Fi, do I have zero-bullshit access to Sprint/USCell/Tmo AND anyone they have a roaming agreement with, or just their respective main native networks? It's looking like jumping on this and financing a 5x will run me about $5/month Does it shove all voice calls through voip like Freedompop does? That's a dumpster fire of a user experience I wish to not repeat. Are there any "lol google" quirks that will bite me in the rear end once it's too late to go back? I already found out I have to not get the plan on the account I have Google Voice on or I lose all the cool GV stuff, which is annoying but can be avoided.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 06:37 |
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Dude if your job actually requires data in as many places as possible in the US, you go Verizon, period. I went to Fi because I was spending about 2 weeks out of each month in random foreign countries and it was a basically loophole into tmobiles's unlimited 256k international data (I was getting away with paying $20 + $10 for 1gb domestic and using nonstop internet internationally), but I've switched jobs up to a mostly domestic, but still travelling a lot and a Verizon 12gb plan can't be touched by Fi domestically, either in cost or reliability. Fi is a weird 'i don't leave the house much and always have wifi' nerd plan, or a very edge case of being out of US a whole lot and exploiting free international data.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 08:53 |
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Javid posted:if I'm on Fi, do I have zero-bullshit access to Sprint/USCell/Tmo AND anyone they have a roaming agreement with, or just their respective main native networks? I haven't been able to roam with my 5X domestically, except for 911 calls. I've read about people roaming on Verizon with the 6P, but I wouldn't bank on it.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 12:28 |
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Javid posted:Are there any "lol google" quirks that will bite me in the rear end once it's too late to go back? I already found out I have to not get the plan on the account I have Google Voice on or I lose all the cool GV stuff, which is annoying but can be avoided.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 19:29 |
photomikey posted:There was a discussion of this a few days ago, but I and some others are using ~2x the amount of data on Fi we were using on our previous carriers. Has anyone reported that coming from not-Sprint? I'm on t-mobile. And if it's just "this network actually isn't poo poo so I used it more, oops", I'm good with that.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 01:18 |
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There's a data saver toggle that prevents the phone from downloading data in the background. That's helped me save from going over monthly allowance.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 01:27 |
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I came from T-mo and my data seems to be pretty similar from my t-mo unlimited. Except for the 700 megs I accidently downloaded when i first got my phone and for some reason it wasn't on wifi at home. I've been a little bit more careful, but the usage doesn't feel like it's changed.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 02:40 |
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I'm using slightly less data since switching from Verizon and Sprint. I've cycled through both over the last several years. That's mostly due to conscious effort, though. Btw, I just turned on Signal Spy's data saver, which imposes a daily limit on data and cuts you off when you go over. It's very helpful for unexpected data use or runaway downloads.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 04:22 |
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Jago posted:I came from T-mo and my data seems to be pretty similar from my t-mo unlimited. Except for the 700 megs I accidently downloaded when i first got my phone and for some reason it wasn't on wifi at home. I've been a little bit more careful, but the usage doesn't feel like it's changed. I live in an area with (what I think is) good strong coverage from T-Mobile, and my data usage has stayed the same. I also think it's silly to call Fi a "nerd who stays at home" plan, I'm lucky to live somewhere that has good T-Mo and Sprint, so even though I never felt like I had coverage issues before, now I'm hopefully covered even better. The regional differences in access to quality telecom services in this country is certainly still really bad though
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 04:35 |
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Project Fi has just introduced Group Plans today. If I'm reading it right, it looks like you'll save $5 per member vs. what they'd pay in total individually. https://blog.google/products/project-fi/introducing-project-fis-group-plan/
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 19:13 |
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It looks like they only support having one "main" person receive and pay the bill, so it wouldn't work for me: the one person I might sign up with for a group plan doesn't want to be sending money around each month to slice up the bill. Five bucks is a pretty nice discount, though.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 21:22 |
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Fi might be neat but it's a lot more expensive than cricket, and att coverage seems pretty good from everywhere I've been
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 21:30 |
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Fi might be neat but it's a lot more expensive than cricket, and att coverage seems pretty good from everywhere I've been Yeah, I don't understand the nerds who are using Fi to save that last ten bucks a month without ever using data anywhere. I get savings by using the same about 2 gigs I was using on AT&T, without paying every month for the extra "emergency" data that I rarely ever used. Now, if I have a month where I really need 5 or 6 gigs, I just pay for it. I don't baby my data, but I am more conscientious about using free WiFi where it is available. HelloWifi is good for that (although ugly as sin). The Fi killer feature for me is global data. I travel for work (and fun) so having the same data in Europe or China is a killer feature. Who cares if my per-gig price is more expensive than a local SIM, because I can still use my US number and not change anything. I literally don't have to think about it, which is very valuable. If I didn't travel I'd be back on a pre-paid plan or AT&T which has great service around where I live. Fi group (family) plans seem to be priced so as to not motivate you to pool your friends into a single group, but just as something available so mom and dad can put everyone onto a single bill and keep track of them.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 21:57 |
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I drive out to Ohio regularly from Chicago. I used to lose coverage pretty regularly along the highway on ATT, even worse with T-Mobile. With Fi I never drop to lower than 3G along the way which is a marked improvement. There are also plenty of areas in Chicago where Tmo/Att coverage fall short, maybe due to buildings, but Sprint/wifi helps pick up the slack. I don't really use much data anyways, and with Fi I treat it like a game to see how low I can get my bill. I don't go all out or anything, I still browse the web while on Cell Data, but it's so stupidly easy to cache music or podcasts ahead of time I don't really see the point of paying for data I don't use/need.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 01:03 |
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I'll re-post my androidcentral comment here if anyone has merged accounts together and can answer my question. "Okay so work with me on this one. I currently have three Project Fi accounts, and three paid in full 5X's, each paying $5 a month for insurance. I have only one Project Fi account active though (daughter), while my wife and I have paused service since we're still on AT&T (basically we wanted the phones cheap and may switch over based on daughters service coverage experience). I paused service rather than cancelling till we're ready so that we can keep the insurance going. Since the service is paused, that means we are currently only being charged the $5 insurance on our two lines (the rest is refunded monthly). So my question is, if we merge everyone in together, can I still pause service on two of the lines or will it pause all three?" Also a new question I thought of, is everyone still their own bucket or is it one big data bucket? As for Project Fi in general, to me the value is in the entire package collectively. If you only use one or two "parts" of Project Fi then sure it may be a little cheaper elsewhere. Potentially better coverage than a single carrier, WiFi calling if you have no coverage, the global capability, insurance is a better deal than the carrier coverage, great phones for a good price, data only SIMs for other devices, etc. OldPueblo fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Oct 12, 2016 |
# ? Oct 12, 2016 05:58 |
FunOne posted:Yeah, I don't understand the nerds who are using Fi to save that last ten bucks a month without ever using data anywhere. I get savings by using the same about 2 gigs I was using on AT&T, without paying every month for the extra "emergency" data that I rarely ever used. Now, if I have a month where I really need 5 or 6 gigs, I just pay for it. I don't baby my data, but I am more conscientious about using free WiFi where it is available. HelloWifi is good for that (although ugly as sin). For a lot of people who are interested in Fi, they are on the nerd plan which is only $30/mth so Fi is only cheaper than it if they can use less than 1 gig. Honestly the data on Fi is obscenely overpriced. It's 5x the cost of the T-mobile Nerd Plan
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 06:57 |
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Nitrousoxide posted:
I typically only use 2GB a month, so I'll eat the extra cost for having the ability to go over 5GB if I need to tether without getting stuck on 2G the rest of the month.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 07:37 |
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So after crunching a lot of numbers, I found that Fi was a pretty reasonable alternative, and seems really appealing. Unfortunately, some googling after running all the numbers shows that they don't activate/port numbers where T-Mobile has no proper presence. This means I can't sign up/port over a 402 number (Nebraska). Is this still the case? Is there any recourse, other than abandoning our numbers, putting in a zip code on sign up that does have their service, and living with an out of state zip? And if I were to buy a Pixel from Verizon (current provider) in the hopes of one day going to Fi, is there any foreseeable difficulty? There's no word on Verizon gimping the radios in their Pixels, is there?
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 07:47 |
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Do not buy a pixel from Verizon. The Google play store version works on Verizon.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 13:37 |
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OldPueblo posted:I'll re-post my androidcentral comment here if anyone has merged accounts together and can answer my question. Have you considered calling Fi and asking them? I bet they would know!
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 13:53 |
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kri kri posted:Do not buy a pixel from Verizon. The Google play store version works on Verizon. It's also out of stock and I need to replace a note 7
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 15:59 |
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Nitrousoxide posted:For a lot of people who are interested in Fi, they are on the nerd plan which is only $30/mth so Fi is only cheaper than it if they can use less than 1 gig. Which was exactly my point. Why bother switching if you're happy to try and save $5 bucks a month by babying your data and turning your phone into a brick when away from WiFi? Just stay on your other plan!
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 16:33 |
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PerrineClostermann posted:It's also out of stock and I need to replace a note 7 The Verizon one is rumored to be locked to Verizon. The Play Store / Fi version can work everywhere, including on Verizon. Nobody knows for sure yet because nothing has been released, but EXPECT a Verizon Pixel to be locked to Verizon because thats just how they do.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 16:35 |
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FunOne posted:The Verizon one is rumored to be locked to Verizon. The Play Store / Fi version can work everywhere, including on Verizon.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 17:28 |
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The concern I'd have is that Verizon is in charge of delivering updates. They say they'll come out at the same time, but do you trust their word? https://www.google.com/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/10/6/13191614/verizon-google-pixel-android-updates?client=ms-android-google
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 17:58 |
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Uthor posted:The concern I'd have is that Verizon is in charge of delivering updates. They say they'll come out at the same time, but do you trust their word? Never trust Verizon. It's a good stance to keep. I'll get it out of the play store if they get more, but the 128gb is sold out And I don't think I can access the Fi stock unless I'm in the right zip code.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 18:02 |
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Endless Mike posted:Have you considered calling Fi and asking them? I bet they would know! That's crazy talk. I guess deep in my heart I'm afraid that they'll say "Hey wait a minute you just keep pausing our service, get 'im boys!" I'll do it via chat and report back.
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# ? Oct 12, 2016 18:55 |
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Just purchased a Nexus 6p and hopped on Fi. Looking around, I see people talking about apps such as 'Signal Spy' and 'FiSwitch'. Should I be trying to utilize those?
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 10:51 |
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Hughmoris posted:Just purchased a Nexus 6p and hopped on Fi. Looking around, I see people talking about apps such as 'Signal Spy' and 'FiSwitch'. Should I be trying to utilize those? Only if you're interested in seeing what network you're on, and if one network sucks particularly bad you can use the app to switch to another carrier.
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 13:55 |
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Signal Spy also has a data saver feature where you can set a daily limit for data usage, and it will cut you off if you go over. It's like a circuit breaker of sorts, so a misbehaving app can't obliterate your bill.
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 15:20 |
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withoutclass posted:Only if you're interested in seeing what network you're on, and if one network sucks particularly bad you can use the app to switch to another carrier. This alone was worth the $2 for me.
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 17:24 |
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PerrineClostermann posted:Unfortunately, some googling after running all the numbers shows that they don't activate/port numbers where T-Mobile has no proper presence. This means I can't sign up/port over a 402 number (Nebraska). Is this still the case? Is there any recourse, other than abandoning our numbers, putting in a zip code on sign up that does have their service, and living with an out of state zip? To continue from the Phone thread, this is correct. If you don't have T-Mobile, you cannot use Fi at all as it won't accept the area code. The only way is to do what you said with an out-of-state zipcode. I've talked to T-Mobile representatives, both store and phone. They know the problem but T-Mobile themselves won't do anything to fix the issue. Hell, they still haven't fixed the towers in Vinton, IA from a tornado 4 years ago. They just don't care is about all that can be said. They even had the balls to show Omaha's name in an ad a few years ago claiming they had perfect signal there while knowing that they have next to nothing. Yes, I'm bitter about this because I'd love to hop off Cricket and try Fi. No, US Cellular being included doesn't fix this and I assume that this would be the same if you had T-Mobile but no Sprint or any combination of that.
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 18:59 |
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I'm one of those weirdos who's never sent a text message and still has a chunky flip-phone and is under 30, but I decided to take the plunge and pre-ordered a Pixel with the expectation that I'll be switching from Verizon (I'm not under contract) to Project Fi to give it a whirl knowing that I can switch back to Verizon if need-be. Is there a good way to regularly log what level of coverage (voice/sms only, 2G, 3G, etc.) you have available and, ideally, what your position is as well? Once I've made the switch I'd like to see if there's anywhere I frequent where I lose service, especially if voice coverage isn't available.
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 19:04 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:00 |
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poeticoddity posted:I'm one of those weirdos who's never sent a text message and still has a chunky flip-phone and is under 30, but I decided to take the plunge and pre-ordered a Pixel with the expectation that I'll be switching from Verizon (I'm not under contract) to Project Fi to give it a whirl knowing that I can switch back to Verizon if need-be. I know Fi Switch logs all connectivity history including networks and connection type, nor sure about Signal Spy.
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# ? Oct 15, 2016 19:14 |