The Return to Google Fi

I switched back to Google Fi today, after a few-year sojourn with Verizon and then AT&T. I wouldn't say that I was an early adopter of Google Fi, but when I first used it a few years ago, I found the coverage to be a bit spotty as it switched between T-Mobile and Sprint networks, and the handoffs between those networks were slow. I liked the pricing model of paying only for actual data used, but at the time I was not using WiFi at work on my personal phone and needed better reception during the day than I was getting on Google Fi, so I bit the bullet and switched to the pricier (but more reliable at the time) Verizon. 

I had always heard that Verizon had the best coverage, and Verizon definitely had better signal at work and at my old apartment, but my wife and parents have been on AT&T for years, and I did find that in more remote places like Yosemite, their service was often better on AT&T than mine was on Verizon. Verizon was also more expensive, even with the corporate discount I was able to apply, and even for their smallest data allotment -- I think I was paying about $60/mo for 5GB/mo. Then we bought our first house in San Mateo, and I found that Verizon had terrible coverage there, while my wife had perfect reception on AT&T (I received mailers about community meetings about Verizon installing more towers near us, which I fully supported, but it seems like the signal never improved, so maybe the conspiracy theorists objected or something). We also got fiber internet from AT&T at the new house, and I changed jobs and started using WiFi at work, so I didn't need as much data, and figured I might as well cut my bill and get better reception at home by switching to AT&T. 

AT&T definitely has the best signal at our house, and good signal at work, but for some reason the discount for paperless billing and autopay that I thought I would get never got applied, so I was paying $55/mo for 3GB of data, and not even using 20% of that allotment because, especially during the pandemic, I always have WiFi. The final straw was discovering that not only does our new second house have terrible AT&T reception, but even once we had WiFi set up, AT&T hadn't enabled WiFI calling on my unlocked phone, so I couldn't escape sputtering call quality at the second house (hopefully my parents' phones will have WiFi calling since they got them from AT&T). And looking ahead to buying a 5G phone in a few months, I realized that AT&T didn't support 5G on my limited data plan, and meanwhile T-Mobile and Sprint had merged, and T-Mobile had arguably developed the best 5G network, and Google Fi has full access to that network for $20/mo plus pay-as-you-go data, so I decided I might as well give Google Fi another try. 

Switching was remarkably easy because of the eSIM technology - all I had to do was download the app and add my account information and my number was ported in minutes without even having to swap out a SIM card. And it turns out that Google Fi (presumably on T-Mobile) has above average reception at both of our houses. Not quite as good as AT&T at our main house, but better than Verizon had been, and far better than AT&T at the second house, and in any event with seamless WiFi calling for crystal clear voice carriage. And I expect to pay less than $25/mo for Google Fi based on my typical pandemic data consumption. Call me impressed. I'm looking forward to trying it out on a 5G Pixel when they launch as well. 

Google Fi has become much more polished in the last few years, and I would recommend it to anyone now. I would note that the Google Fi unlimited data plan isn't as cheap as some of T-Mobile's own unlimited plans, but for someone like me who uses very little cellular data, the low-cost variable data plan on Google Fi is perfect. I also like that Google Fi has seamless international data roaming with no additional fee - we used that a lot when we were island hopping around the Caribbean on our honeymoon, and may use it again when the pandemic is over.