Google Fi

[njoynthewater]

We are a Canadian couple wandering the Caribbean and looking for cell service that doesn't require a new sim card at every new country. Does anyone have any comments on the Google Fi system?

[Tessellate]

There are several threads on this question so you may find helpful info already in them:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site....com+google+fi

We use Google Fi in the US + BC and various other countries while traveling and love it. Only problem is if you regularly use a lot of data it can get expensive.

[vaporware]

We previously had Google Fiber. If they offer coverage in a country, it works well. I don't think it will work for people not based in the U.S. we have used it in China, Japan and Ecuador, among other places.



If you don't need high speed data, T-MOBILE works well. Most plans give you unlimited high speed data, voice and texts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In most other countries you get unlimited low speed data, texts and 20¢/minute calls and free WiFi calling to and from the U.S. We found this works well for us. We have used it it China, Spain and Brazil. We have the senior plan, two phones for $70 total, including all taxes and fees. We found we can live without high speed data. No surprise bills. Same number and sim card anywhere in the world. We found there is enough WiFi available to meet our data needs pretty much everywhere. It works well for us. YMMV.

[dcareri]

I've been using Google Fi the last 4-5 months in Bonaire, the US and British Virgins and Anguilla. Overall connectivity has been good but in some places it takes some trial and error to find the right network to use.

As far a price I have 2 voice sims and one data sim which is used in the boats main router. Unfortunately the data sim gets billed as part of one of the voice sims so it doesn't have it's own price protection and our bills have been higher than I was expecting.

We are heavy data users and have gone over the price protection limit the past couple of months. The unlimited slow data that kicks in is too slow to be of use so I've always turned the fast data back on at $10 / GB.

We had been using local SIMs for the past year and although we found a few prepaid unlimited plans they are far and few in-between. The $10/GB google charges is competitive and even better than we've found in some countries.

[john61ct]

I use five different cellphone / wireless data providers, and Google Fi is by far the easiest to deal with.

You only pay for the data you consume at $10 per GB, I average $40-50 a month.

So not good value for high GB consumption, but switching between TMO and Sprint gives pretty good geographic coverage for the US, and their MVNO deals around the world are generally pretty good, only some places you need to buy a local SIM.

You don't have to pay past 6GB, but they do start throttling pretty hard at some point.

[john61ct]

Just checked, apparently Google will now only slow your data speeds once you hit 15 GB of data.*

So once you get past the $60 cap, the next 9GB is "free", the average cost per GB goes way down from $10 per.

But this may not be true on all their partner carriers, especially small countries as in the Caribbean.

[john61ct]

And of course Alphabet might kill it off pull the plug anytime

https://killedbygoogle.com/

[Cayuse51]

Just finished circumnavigating with Google Fi service and Google Pixel phones. They worked well most everywhere. It is very nice to have your phone start working about 10 miles out as you approach a new country.