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After months and months of rumors, Google has finally unveiled their MVNO plans, and it’s known as Project Fi. It’s a new network that will intelligently switch you from WiFi to 4G LTE on Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks. Like the rumors stated, there’s no Verizon or AT&T compatibility at this time, unfortunately. Of course, you will need an invite, and if you haven’t already figured it out, this is just in the US. It also only works on the Nexus 6, for now. That will likely expand to other devices in the near future though.
The price for Project Fi is quite simple. It’s $20/month for talk, text, WiFi tethering and international coverage in over 120+ countries. After that it’s $10 per gigabyte of data. So 1GB is $10, 2GB is $20, 3GB is $30, and on and on. But here’s the kicker. The data that you don’t use, you will get credited back to your account. The example that Google uses is that if you pay $30 for 3GB of data, and only use 1.4GB, you will get $16 credited back to your account. So you are basically only paying for what you use. Pretty simple.
One of the big reasons for Project Fi is to allow the technology to get out of the way so you can use your phone however you want. These days we are always switching on or off WiFi, hoping from LTE to WiFi manually. With Project Fi, it’s done automatically. Google’s service will be able to determine if the best service for you is a WiFi hotspot or a specific 4G LTE network – whether that’s T-Mobile or Sprint’s network. Project Fi will connect you to more than a million free, open WiFi hotspots that they have verified as fast and reliable. Google does encrypt your data, so when you are on free open WiFi, your data is still secure.
As we stated earlier on, Project Fi is invite only for now. You can go to fi.google.com and request your invite today. Google says that more invites will be going out each week. So it’s set up sort of like Inbox by Gmail is, but we aren’t sure if users will be able to invite other users into Project Fi just yet.