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Brief Thoughts on Google Fi

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read

I know I’m a couple days late on this story, but I still wanted to comment on this briefly. This is from Google’s announcement:

Here’s how it works: for $20 a month you get all the basics (talk, text, Wi-Fi tethering, and international coverage in 120+ countries), and then it’s a flat $10 per GB for cellular data while in the U.S. and abroad. 1GB is $10/month, 2GB is $20/month, 3GB is $30/month, and so on.

This is a great deal, and would work great for most people. Considering most people have something like a 2GB data cap, that same service would cost them $40 with Google Fi. And since Google is only charging you for the data you actually use, your bill could be lower if you don’t use your full 2GB. I’m definitely an edge case, because I currently have an unlimited plan through T-Mobile and use about 7GB of data per month. At that rate, I would pay $90 per month. That’s actually more than I pay T-Mobile, so it may not be for me.

It’s actually not for most people either, as you can currently only get the service if you’re a proud owner of a Nexus 6.

Much like Google Fiber, Google Fi looks like an attempt to show the major carriers how simple internet service should be. We saw the cable companies slowly react in cities where Google rolled out Fiber. We’ll see if there’s any response to Fi.