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I was tempted to switch from T-Mobile, but I ran into two things which were a dealbreaker for me: * I couldn't port my Google Voice number. When I asked some random person at Google Support about this, they claimed it was because the area code the number was from (319 - Southeast/East Central Iowa) didn't have both T-Mobile and Sprint service. Most of Iowa outside Des Moines doesn't have 'proper' T-Mobile coverage, it's through a separate regional carrier called i wireless, they aren't an MVNO, they just have a roaming agreement with T-Mobile. This leads into the next big problem. * You apparently have to be in an area with both Sprint AND T-Mobile coverage for Fi to 'work'. This didn't make sense to me and I asked the Support person to confirm this multiple times. It just seems really stupid as the primary use case would be that you were somewhere that didn't have one carrier coverage or the other. This especially doesn't make sense when Ixian explained how it works internationally. Does anyone here with experience have any explanation for the above two?
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Oct 26, 2015 18:16
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Ixian posted:I don't think that is the primary use case though - for Google, anyway. I think they require service coverage in both areas because the entire basis of the agreement they worked out with the carriers is the service wouldn't be exclusive to one or the other. It's supposed to mix. That makes sense, and it explains why they would have trouble porting my Google Voice number, as Fi is probably operating as an MVNO for both Sprint and T-Mobile at the same time, and using custom radio firmware to make that distinction more transparent (you probably wouldn't know if you were on a Sprint or T-Mob tower at any given time without diagnostic tools). I guess the only thing holding me back at this point is the GVoice number, but I guess I felt especially burnt by that since the whole reason I moved to using a Google Voice number several years ago was to avoid changing numbers and worrying about porting when going from carrier to carrier.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:57
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zer0spunk posted:Waitttt, so you can't port the number back to google voice after? They offer that for 20 bucks..Now I'm even more confused. I figured the only thing you lose is the voice app, which has everything in hangouts anyway functionally. You "port" your number to fi, lose google voice app access, but then could port the number back to voice if you cancel fi, and then port it over to a carrier later...am I wrong? This is literally what I see when I try to sign up for Fi: 
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Oct 26, 2015 19:44
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I had some weird issues sometimes when going to areas that don't have T-Mobile coverage, but there is coverage available with regional carriers who have roaming agreements with T-Mobile (I wireless in Iowa, Bug Tussel in Wisconsin). Data wouldn't connect until I toggled airplane mode on and off.
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Nov 25, 2016 06:48
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Dang and here I was hoping they announced more third-party full feature support for non-Google phones on Fi 
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Nov 14, 2019 20:25
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