My Canadian carrier wants me to pay $100 for 500MB of US data so I would really appreciate the whole $1 for 100MB of data works in 120 countries thing. I can deal with 256Kbps.
Wind is available in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa.
My wife has Wind and uses it constantly in Edmonton. No real problems except weak signal downtown compared to her old Bell plan and then the service cuts out when you drive out of the city (but that is obvious from their coverage map). We vacationed in Ottawa and her phone worked there just fine too, not that we used it that frequently.
I am in Canada too, and could say, any carrier is bad here. I pay approximately 60$ for a basic iPhone plan (not counting iPhone), but it's an old plan, new plans are around $85/mo for same service: prices are raising for LTE!
They may need to sweetend the deal to make it competitive in other markets.
Here's in the UK, I'm currently paying £15 a month (about $23) for 2000 minutes, 5000 texts, and unlimited (in this case actually unlimited, not just marketing) data with tethering included. When abroad, including the US, the voice and text allowances roll over, but data is limited to a mere 25gb. Which makes it bizarrely cheaper to roam in the US than purchase any domestic US tariff. You do lose access to 4G data rates though (even if you switch to the phone with the correct LTE radio bands).
Hmm, is it? I've been using around 10GB a month lately, sometimes 6GB sometimes 12GB but the average is probably at 10GB or close... That would be $100/mo with Google whereas Sprint & Tmo offer unlimited plans for $60-80.
If you consistently use under 7GB of data a month then there's cheaper plans out there too... This might become more attractive at that point tho. I applaud the effort tho, specially if it works as a dual carrier MVNO?
It is a great deal for most people. I imagine most people who get the Nexus 6 are on one of the "big 4" in the USA. T-mobile and sprint offer unlimited packages... However, I would argue most people use under 2GB of data (probably under 1GB?) which makes this a cost of 30-40 dollars a month.
The issue with this push is that the only phone it is on is a flagship. This feels like a perfect fit for future cheap Nexus phones. Imagine if a Moto E/G had this option? That would probably be the only recommendable phone for the low end (sans possibly T-mobile 5GB plan for $30)
Yeah I can see that, for the average user that rarely goes over 2GB (most of my family fits this description, young or old) it starts to make more sense... Tho only if they aren't in a family plan.
As a $30-40 single user plan it looks great, albeit with an odd phone choice, the cost of individual lines in family plans is right around that range too tho... My parents have my sister in their AT&T plan and they pay like $47 or so for 10GB between them, on a larger network which has it's own benefits.
Hopefully Google iterates on this some more, has potential.
The entire press fails to explain to readers what a MVNO is and how things work. You can see everywhere that people fail to fully get it. With some digging you can even find some recent examples of data costs for MVNOs , it would help explain why 1GB of data is 10$ not 1$ and why Google (or anyone else) can't offer something at sane prices. Although the 20$ for voice and texts is way too much too.
what other carrier offers $20 for unlimited voice and text, as well as 20¢/min roaming calls? And then which one of them bills only $1/100 MB for data, including while roaming?
Yeah i agree ,they are all terrible and my point was that the press should explain why since most seem to not get it that carriers set very high data prices and there just isn't any way around it as a MVNO. However, Google is more or less copying Republic Wireless and trying to offload on wifi as much as possible so for voice and SMS they could have easily done much better pricing wise.
Not certain what other carrier does it for $20 a month, but republic wireless does that for $10 a month if you don't care about cellular data. It's then $25 a month for unlimited talk, text, and 3G data - though there is a limit on roaming data.
I definitely like seeing Google getting involved in this area though.
My guess is they use tiers so that customers who do not want to pay overages will have a (self-imposed) "cap" -- and get a warning if they're approaching their limit, and/or reduced speeds after they hit the limit. But I don't know.
I will also note that our current family plan on T-Mobile (US) seems, at a glance, to offer better rates than this ($65 for unlimited talk/text for 3 ppl; and $10 for 3GB of data per line) -- but there are obviously other variables involved. Cheers to Google, anyway; i'm sure this will be helpful to some, and hope it catches on.
they're not doing it per 100MB because people are risk adverse; it's a psychology thing. Having to pay $40 but getting back $16 is way better than paying $20 but having to pay up to $40.
Betting on people being risk averse and bad at math is absolutely a safe bet. I'd take that bet any day of the week if I were a business.
People are much more likely to seek paying less now than they are to seek a future discount. Think of it like your car; if you had to pay every time you drove it, you'd probably drive less. But you'll still pump it up every 2 weeks for about the same daily price.
I would think that they are doing it because on a large scale, having all your customers pay $40 at the start of a month is a whole month that all that money sits in their interest bearing account.
It's not encrypted from Google thats for sure. Are they also going to give money back for all your personal data and activities they sell to advertisers?
"Google can push texts and phone calls to any devices that have the Google Hangouts application installed." This is not a new feature, but you mention it as though it is.
They probably have improved backend integration for sms or at least I hope so as I have issues from time to time with sprint and sms via google voice/hangouts
I don't understand why Google chose to make Project Fi available only on a single phone model, the Nexus 6. Why not other Nexus phones? Why not non-Nexus unlocked phones?
I also don't understand the business case for this. How would Project Fi be useful or profitable to Google?
Well it uses both Tmobile and sprint bands, and if i recall correctly the only phones supporting ALL required bands would be the nexus 5 and the nexus 6. No other phones do. There is probably some hardware built into the N6 that allows some sort of handoff between them in the case of finding a stronger signal, or there may be too many N5s out there for Google to feel comfortable in the test phase.
TL;DR probably possible on N5, technically impossible on other phones
Duh, hadn't thought about that, pretty obvious tho. This plan would be GREAT for a budget or midrange phone, not sure there's a chance we'll see another N5-like device that supports both carriers at $350 tho.
When the N6 came out I thought they should've kept selling the N5 all thru this year, it's still a pretty strong value, would be perfect for this.
It's a product test your applying for an invite so it's a very narrow initial public beta test the nexus 5 will likely get support eventually unless theres some hardware reason blocking usage of sprint and tmobile bands at the same time. I wanna see someone who gets an invite and activates try the nexus 6 sim ina nexus 5 and see what happens.
I like the idea about the cloud based number this I really want however the price just does not look competitive at all... this maybe due to the fact I live in England however I pay £15 a month for unlimited calls, text and data (4g no speed throttling etc) on Three UK, this is a rolling contract so I can cancel anytime and also I can use it abroad and it comes out of my own allowance (i.e my unlimited data), seems to work in every holiday location I would ever consider!
Also my average data usage is 15GB a month (EVERYTHING is streamed, tethering also supported :P). This plan would cost me $150 a month... hmm glad im in the UK :D
A-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! And how long will G bother to keep this project running in beta before it quietly drops it? Hangouts has proven to be such a popular service...
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
45 Comments
Back to Article
danbob999 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Great deal. Hope this comes to other countries and devices.Brandon Chester - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
My Canadian carrier wants me to pay $100 for 500MB of US data so I would really appreciate the whole $1 for 100MB of data works in 120 countries thing. I can deal with 256Kbps.ant6n - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
I'm also in Canada, definitely thinking about trying to set this up for myself somehow.keg504 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Which carrier is that bad?Brandon Chester - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Fido.SilthDraeth - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Is Wind Mobile not available to you guys? One of my friends on Toronto uses Wind Mobile for unlimited data, and gets to use it in the USA.DaFox - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Wind Mobile is only available in a couple cities and I think it's pretty bad everywhere but Toronto and Vancouver. (spotty coverage)evilspoons - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Wind is available in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa.My wife has Wind and uses it constantly in Edmonton. No real problems except weak signal downtown compared to her old Bell plan and then the service cuts out when you drive out of the city (but that is obvious from their coverage map). We vacationed in Ottawa and her phone worked there just fine too, not that we used it that frequently.
iAPX - Monday, April 27, 2015 - link
I am in Canada too, and could say, any carrier is bad here.I pay approximately 60$ for a basic iPhone plan (not counting iPhone), but it's an old plan, new plans are around $85/mo for same service: prices are raising for LTE!
rvoth - Thursday, April 30, 2015 - link
Agreed Canada is horrible when it comes to our telecoms. They overcharge for services and then provide crap service on top of it.edzieba - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
They may need to sweetend the deal to make it competitive in other markets.Here's in the UK, I'm currently paying £15 a month (about $23) for 2000 minutes, 5000 texts, and unlimited (in this case actually unlimited, not just marketing) data with tethering included. When abroad, including the US, the voice and text allowances roll over, but data is limited to a mere 25gb. Which makes it bizarrely cheaper to roam in the US than purchase any domestic US tariff. You do lose access to 4G data rates though (even if you switch to the phone with the correct LTE radio bands).
Speedfriend - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
@edziebaThat soiunds like a great deal, which network are you on?
Impulses - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Hmm, is it? I've been using around 10GB a month lately, sometimes 6GB sometimes 12GB but the average is probably at 10GB or close... That would be $100/mo with Google whereas Sprint & Tmo offer unlimited plans for $60-80.If you consistently use under 7GB of data a month then there's cheaper plans out there too... This might become more attractive at that point tho. I applaud the effort tho, specially if it works as a dual carrier MVNO?
That bit wasn't clear...
testbug00 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
It is a great deal for most people. I imagine most people who get the Nexus 6 are on one of the "big 4" in the USA. T-mobile and sprint offer unlimited packages... However, I would argue most people use under 2GB of data (probably under 1GB?) which makes this a cost of 30-40 dollars a month.The issue with this push is that the only phone it is on is a flagship. This feels like a perfect fit for future cheap Nexus phones. Imagine if a Moto E/G had this option? That would probably be the only recommendable phone for the low end (sans possibly T-mobile 5GB plan for $30)
Impulses - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Yeah I can see that, for the average user that rarely goes over 2GB (most of my family fits this description, young or old) it starts to make more sense... Tho only if they aren't in a family plan.As a $30-40 single user plan it looks great, albeit with an odd phone choice, the cost of individual lines in family plans is right around that range too tho... My parents have my sister in their AT&T plan and they pay like $47 or so for 10GB between them, on a larger network which has it's own benefits.
Hopefully Google iterates on this some more, has potential.
testbug00 - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Yeah. It really needed to be $10 + $10 per GB (well, $1 per 100MB) on a Moto E/G. Or some other low end handset!jjj - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
The entire press fails to explain to readers what a MVNO is and how things work.You can see everywhere that people fail to fully get it.
With some digging you can even find some recent examples of data costs for MVNOs , it would help explain why 1GB of data is 10$ not 1$ and why Google (or anyone else) can't offer something at sane prices. Although the 20$ for voice and texts is way too much too.
danbob999 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
what other carrier offers $20 for unlimited voice and text, as well as 20¢/min roaming calls? And then which one of them bills only $1/100 MB for data, including while roaming?chenetic - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Have you heard of http://Ultra.me, an MVNO of T-mobile: $19/month + $5/500 MB. Pretty close but doesn't include roaming.jjj - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Yeah i agree ,they are all terrible and my point was that the press should explain why since most seem to not get it that carriers set very high data prices and there just isn't any way around it as a MVNO.However, Google is more or less copying Republic Wireless and trying to offload on wifi as much as possible so for voice and SMS they could have easily done much better pricing wise.
Khato - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Not certain what other carrier does it for $20 a month, but republic wireless does that for $10 a month if you don't care about cellular data. It's then $25 a month for unlimited talk, text, and 3G data - though there is a limit on roaming data.I definitely like seeing Google getting involved in this area though.
whiteiphoneproblems - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
My guess is they use tiers so that customers who do not want to pay overages will have a (self-imposed) "cap" -- and get a warning if they're approaching their limit, and/or reduced speeds after they hit the limit. But I don't know.I will also note that our current family plan on T-Mobile (US) seems, at a glance, to offer better rates than this ($65 for unlimited talk/text for 3 ppl; and $10 for 3GB of data per line) -- but there are obviously other variables involved. Cheers to Google, anyway; i'm sure this will be helpful to some, and hope it catches on.
whiteiphoneproblems - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
To clarify -- that's $10 for each line that has 3GB of data. Of course, unused data rolls over but is not "refunded" as with the Google plan.soccerballtux - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
they're not doing it per 100MB because people are risk adverse; it's a psychology thing. Having to pay $40 but getting back $16 is way better than paying $20 but having to pay up to $40.Flunk - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
That sounds like you're betting on people being bad at math.thesavvymage - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Betting on people being risk averse and bad at math is absolutely a safe bet. I'd take that bet any day of the week if I were a business.People are much more likely to seek paying less now than they are to seek a future discount. Think of it like your car; if you had to pay every time you drove it, you'd probably drive less. But you'll still pump it up every 2 weeks for about the same daily price.
Impulses - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
People being risk averse and bad at math is pretty much the foundation of the current carrier model anyway!alphasquadron - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I would think that they are doing it because on a large scale, having all your customers pay $40 at the start of a month is a whole month that all that money sits in their interest bearing account.darwinosx - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
It's not encrypted from Google thats for sure. Are they also going to give money back for all your personal data and activities they sell to advertisers?menting - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Verizon does the same thing..Have they given anything back?steven75 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Verizon does something bad, therefore it's ok for everyone to do that bad thing! Huzzah, logic!sweenish - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Welcome to Google. You must be new here.Because you have no idea how Google uses your information.
ratbert1 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
"Google can push texts and phone calls to any devices that have the Google Hangouts application installed." This is not a new feature, but you mention it as though it is.SunLord - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
They probably have improved backend integration for sms or at least I hope so as I have issues from time to time with sprint and sms via google voice/hangoutsFYoung - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
I don't understand why Google chose to make Project Fi available only on a single phone model, the Nexus 6. Why not other Nexus phones? Why not non-Nexus unlocked phones?I also don't understand the business case for this. How would Project Fi be useful or profitable to Google?
thesavvymage - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Well it uses both Tmobile and sprint bands, and if i recall correctly the only phones supporting ALL required bands would be the nexus 5 and the nexus 6. No other phones do. There is probably some hardware built into the N6 that allows some sort of handoff between them in the case of finding a stronger signal, or there may be too many N5s out there for Google to feel comfortable in the test phase.TL;DR probably possible on N5, technically impossible on other phones
Impulses - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Duh, hadn't thought about that, pretty obvious tho. This plan would be GREAT for a budget or midrange phone, not sure there's a chance we'll see another N5-like device that supports both carriers at $350 tho.When the N6 came out I thought they should've kept selling the N5 all thru this year, it's still a pretty strong value, would be perfect for this.
SunLord - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
It's a product test your applying for an invite so it's a very narrow initial public beta test the nexus 5 will likely get support eventually unless theres some hardware reason blocking usage of sprint and tmobile bands at the same time. I wanna see someone who gets an invite and activates try the nexus 6 sim ina nexus 5 and see what happens.titanmiller - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Will you be charged data if connected to your home network's WiFi?themeinme75 - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Wifi data is not charged.Hicks192 - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I like the idea about the cloud based number this I really want however the price just does not look competitive at all... this maybe due to the fact I live in England however I pay £15 a month for unlimited calls, text and data (4g no speed throttling etc) on Three UK, this is a rolling contract so I can cancel anytime and also I can use it abroad and it comes out of my own allowance (i.e my unlimited data), seems to work in every holiday location I would ever consider!Is this competitive for you guys over in america?
Hicks192 - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Also my average data usage is 15GB a month (EVERYTHING is streamed, tethering also supported :P).This plan would cost me $150 a month... hmm glad im in the UK :D
rpmrush - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Wonder if a Verizon Nexus 6 will work. Verizon is notorious for gimping phones.pugster - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
I use Google Hangouts with freedompop and it cost me $0 a month. Probably not going to convince me to change.Brakken - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
A-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! And how long will G bother to keep this project running in beta before it quietly drops it? Hangouts has proven to be such a popular service...