Many of you know that I do work in the mobile industry, but I do not work for a carrier or for Google. I will be the first to admit that no carrier is perfect. The needs of every person are unique and different carriers will cater to those needs differently. These are my opinions as they apply to me and my situation. Yours may be different.
Request & Sign-Up Process:
I requested a Project Fi invite on 4/23/15. After my request, Google sent an email stating that I would receive an update within a month. They never said that I would receive my invite within a month. Many others that requested invites misunderstood this and became very upset. I don't really pitty them. They should learn to read better. Being the nerd that I am, I joined an unofficial Project Fi community on Google+ that week. I would check it at least once a day to see who was being invited and their thoughts on the service. Most people were very happy; a few were not. Everyone was really loving the "surprise" gifts from Google for being an early adopter.
Fast forward to this week. I got my invite on Monday. It was sitting in my inbox when I checked my phone after my son's swim lesson. As soon as we got home, I hopped on my desktop PC, requested a Project Fi sim and selected my plan. I already had a Nexus 6 which I wasn't using. I did as much as I could to set up the phone prior to the sim arriving. My sim arrived Wednesday night and setup was a breeze! Everything is done via the Project Fi app. I downloaded the app, inserted the new sim, and after a couple clicks I had ported my Google Voice number over to Fi! My phone prompted to do an OS update. That took a few minutes. Then I was up and running!
Hardware:
Nexus 6 by Motorola is a great phone if you like huge screen phones. It is also the only phone that works with Project Fi right now. I like this phone a lot, but it is a little too big for my personal tastes. Aside from being a bit big, I do love this device. It is the fastest phone I've ever used. I like using Android without a skin to clutter it up and slow it down. As I said, I do like this phone a lot. I am excited, however, to see what other phones will be options in the future.
Service:
This is probably what most of you are curious about. For the past few years I've been using Verizon for my personal phone line and my main work line. I have been very happy with the service that Verizon has provided to me. I'm trying out Fi because I'm a nerd and wanted to be one of the first to try something new.
When I first activated the service, I quickly downloaded an app called Fi Spy that I had learned about in the above mentioned Google+ community. This is a simple third party app that lets you know what network you are on. Fi itself does not make it overly apparent which network you are on, just the type (3G, 4G, etc.) and signal strength. I haven't used Sprint or T-Mobile in a couple years. I had lines with both of them until about two years ago. T-Mobile was always very fast for me and had good service in cities and suburban areas. Rural areas, not so much. Sprint flat out sucked when I used them before. At that time, they still did not have any sort of 4G is southeast Michigan. I was actually surprised that my phone was connected to Sprint's network on Wednesday night when I activated. I was at my house, so I was also connected to my home wifi. The next day I had to visit some customers around town for work. I was connected to Sprint all morning and speed tests showed that their speeds were better than acceptable. That afternoon, the phone switched over to T-Mobile. Speed tests on T-Mobile proved to be slightly better than Sprint, but both were fine. I expected to stay on T-Mobile most of the time around home, because I thought they had the better network in my area. For the next two days I stayed connected to T-Mobile exclusively. The phone did automatically connect to several wifi hotspots (Verizon store, pizza place, etc.) during the first couple of days too! That was exciting and should help a lot with data consumption.
I traveled to Grand Rapids on Saturday morning and held service the whole way there. For a couple miles on I-96, I did drop to T-Mobile's GPRS (2G) service. It was just a couple miles and I wasn't near a major city. This is where Verizon wins, rural areas. I knew this going in and am ok with it. I still have a work phone with Verizon and I can handle two minutes on the freeway with 2G coverage. As I type this, my Nexus 6 has switched over to Sprint LTE service. I'm assuming that Fi analyzes both networks in real time based on capacity etc. to determine which to connect to. That's pretty cool.
Calls have been great too over cellular and wifi. I've done both. I can now call from any room in my house which is nice. Also, my dad's basement is a dead zone for almost all cellular carriers. I was able to have a conversation there last night with zero issues. Hand off from wifi to cellular has been flawless too. It just works. I noticed no change in sound quality, etc.
Billing:
With Project Fi, you pay for your month in advance. Any credits or overages go onto your bill for the next month. I got my first bill the day after I activated. I picked a 3GB plan ($50) and with the taxes and fees, my bill totaled at $53.40. I expect my next bill to be lower. I don't think I will use 3GB of data so a credit on my next bill will be nice. The Project Fi app is actually very simple and useful. It shows data consumption day to day and also has tabs for billing and support.
So far so good for me with Project Fi. It works. It doesn't transform your cellular experience into something magical or crazy, but it wasn't intended to. It simply works. I'm happy and I love only paying for the data that I use.
Hit me up with questions if you have them.
-Jon
