It is a niche price.

More expensive for high data users, but less expensive for low data users. Flexibility is really king here, if 9 months of the year you use < 1 GB/month ($30/month) but want the option to have much more (e.g. emergency) and international travel, full speed hotspot, then it may be for you.

As to "why is the US/Canada so expensive?" Urban areas subsidies rural cellular. The US is hugely populated on the East and West coasts and a cellphone network that only targeted those population centers would be as cheap or even cheaper than Europe. But most networks are deploying LTE to middle-America where there are few people, and most cellular infrastructure loses money.

Networks have tried doing cellphone networks that only work within New York State, California, or Texas for example but people want the hypothetical ability to travel on the open road whenever and wherever they want.

"Roaming" used to be a thing (I don't think I've seen domestic roaming in years). It essentially solved this problem, anything inside your typical geographic range was included at normal price, but you paid a hefty surcharge when roaming in rural areas. The problem was, you could accidentally or even intentionally travel outside of your network and get charged exorbitant roaming fees. It was really easy to accidentally rack up a huge bill and so many consumers were against it despite it being a "fair" solution, from an economic sense.

Thanks for the explanation, it indeed makes sense that coverage for much denser area like Western Europe is less expensive than for low density zones.

In canada, the cheapest phone plans are available in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, our two least-densely-populated provinces.

And they too are using infrastructure built by national networks and government grants, therefore they too are subsidized by urban areas.

I believe it's also capped at $100 – after that you get unlimited data, but it's rate limited.

Once you hit 6gb, you stop paying till you hit 15gb. After that, you're rate limited, or you can call up Fi support and have them put you at full speed and charge the usual $10/gb

Capped at $60 for data.

Ah yeah, looks like they rolled out some new plans with the change up, or I didn't look at all the options when I last looked.

That cap's been there for a while. IIRC, it was implemented some months after T-Mobile started the "race to unlimited data"... was that the winter before last? Speaking of the U.S. marketplace. I never read an official explanation, but my assumption/understanding was that this was Fi's response to remain competitive with other carriers' "unlimited" plans.

What concerns me is the throttling at/after 15 GB. Other carriers have this, too, but it is supposedly "dependent on local load/conditions", and comments have led me to understand that, for some if not many people, they don't encounter the slowdown much in practice.

Whereas, being an MVNO and also perhaps having better software, Fi might be more strict and aggressive with the throttling? I don't know.

You only play for what you use. This rewards anyone who mainly stays on wifi. My bill is roughly ~$35 a month with them while everyone I know has bills of 70-120. If you sign up for 2GB but use 1.1GB you only pay $11.

A T-mobile family plan with unlimited data (throttled after 2GB) comes out to ~$25/month. If that didn't exist, I'd look into Google Fi.

Sounds like you got a rare deal, everything I'm seeing online says it's $70-$40 per line depending on how many lines you have.

I guess it depends on how many people you add to your family plan. The more people you add the cheaper it gets

Yeah, it's cheaper per person, but the total cost still rises no matter how many people you add.

That may be. But there's still the T-Mobile Essentials plan that's $30/line for 4 lines - and might be lower for more lines.

> A T-mobile family plan with unlimited data (throttled after 2GB) comes out to ~$25/month.

This may be a legacy plan; the only thing they seem to currently offer is $40/line/month for 4 lines ($70/month for one), but throttled at 50GB/month (not clear if this is by line or account), not 2GB/month.

It's a little cheaper than Fi list price at the level Bill Protection (essentially, unlimited with 15GB/line throttling threshold) kicks in ($160/4 lines with TMo vs $205 for Fi). But Fi does refund if you use less than 14 GB total, which may reduce the effective price depending on usage pattern.

That one month that you use over 2GB is hell. That alone keeps me away from throttled plans.

How on earth do people have mobile bills of $120 a month?

A good chunk of that is phone payments, not the actual service cost.

I own my phone and from the big carriers two phones or more generally costs $80+ a month.

I think those are family plan prices. I pay about $140 unlimited cell data, 15Gigs for tethering, an Apple Watch, and 2 lines of unlimited talk/text.

How would the carrier know if you use your cellphone for tethering, and separately bill that traffic?

User Agent sniffing, traffic analysis, port sniffing and new phones might even tell them. The carriers are already doing a lot of load balancing among all the devices attached to their network. It wouldn’t be too hard to detect.

Years ago AT&T sent me text right when I connected to my hotspot. I can’t see the tethering data use on AT&Ts dashboard but I can see usage per line.

$70+/mo major provider "unlimited" plan + $50+/mo flagship phone

Monopolies mostly. The US is big enough that there are really only 2, maybe 3 providers. Everyone else is a reseller.

I can second this. Our family plan is 60-75 and we are really not trying to save.

Yeah moving from the USA to UK, one of the things I definitely don't miss is us telecom pricing. I just signed up for a new plan here for 20 GBP per month that gives me 15GB of data and free call/text/data roaming in US, Canada, Australia, etc..

I pay less money for access to more data in America then my American family does.

That's not a far less expensive plan per GB though.

20 GBP is about $25 USD. T Mobile US is offering 50GB LTE at $70 per month. Adjusting your 15GB to that nets you $83 per month. T Mobile also offers free call/text/data roaming as well to dozens of other countries as part of the plan.

You can also get unlimited everything at £20/mo though.

Three in the UK (http://www.three.co.uk/) have unlimited mobile data for £20/mo on a 12 month contract. You get:

- unlimited calls and texts in UK and 71 other countries

- unlimited mobile data in the UK in including use as a wifi hotspot

- up to 15GB data in 71 countries including use as a wifi hotspot

Assuming Germany is on the list, that would still be a lot better than the 4GB cap + 5Eur per extra GB we have here. But to replace my landline I really need unlimited. Except, I don't really need to loose the landline other than to save for the expensive mobile contracts, and that only for streams.

"Is 10$/GB a reasonable price in the US? It seems completely out of whack to me."

I basically travel non-stop. And wherever I land, I receive a message.

"Welcome to India we got you covered"

"Welcome to Russia we got you covered"

"Welcome to China we got you covered"

"Welcome to France we got you covered"

"Welcome to Uganda we got you covered"

I can live with 10 US$/GB

It's really amazing. Only countries I've ever visited without Fi support were Iran and Ethiopia. Even in Iraq and Myanmar, Fi worked great. Your traffic also automatically goes through Fi's VPN, which unlike ExpressVPN and most other big commercial ones, has never in my experience been blocked by China.

Yes, Ethiopia does not work. It is bad because I am often in Ethiopia. Never been to Iran but want to.

Won't work in Cuba or North Korea too I am sure.

Only exception that I didn't expect was Vietnam. No clue why Vietnam over say, Thailand.

I got a new phone less than a month ago, and this was a reason I got an android one phone. I can just use my phone (and unrelated, Uber) when I go to India (or anywhere else so far).

How are cell coverage and data speeds on Fi internationally? I have not traveled out of the country since this has been my carrier.

I had few problems in Argentina and Uruguay (only countries I've been to since I got it, but been to several times). In the norhern part of Argentina (Iguazu) I had poor coverage where my girlfriend had (Argentinian service provider) great coverage. I think Fi was trying to decide if I was in Brazil or Argentina and that was messing me up. In Buenos Aires (where I spent most of my time), reception was good except for around some buildings (assuming line-of-sight issues). In Uruguay I never had any problems.

The only other issues were a lag between landing and service beginning. Took over half an hour on one trip, and over an hour on another. But this year I didn't have that lag, took maybe 5 minutes from when I turned on the phone after landing to it working.

Service speed was always good.

NB: I have a Nexus 5X. Some of the reception issues may have just been reception issues with that device compared to others, I don't know.

Great in my experience (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, UK, Canada, Thailand, South Korea). I found it to always be fast with no obvious throttling, and coverage is often better overseas than at home.

They are native speeds, or at least so fast that they might as well have been. I was seeing > 60mbit in Germany.

Worth noting that specifically for Google Fi

* the $10/GB quote is pay as you go - unused data does not magically expire at the end of the billing cycle. While one can probably find a better promotional deal with a US carrier, those unclaimed gigabytes are unlikely to "roll over" to the next month.

* the rate is valid for any of Fi's international partners across 170 countries. Other US operators are likely to hit the user with roaming charges for voice + data

Also worth noting: once you cross 6GB, they stop billing. Basically, your bill is capped at $80 + taxes, so that one month that you end up using 250 GB doesn't cost you $2500, it costs $80.

Also worth noting: If you set up a group on Fi, the cost cap increases, but the per user cost goes down.

https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6201699?hl=en&ref_topic...

At the top end (6 group members) the max per user cost (if splitting evenly and not proportioned based on individual usage) is $50, compared to $80 for one user.

This is a bit misleading. They throttle you to 256kbps after 15GB, but give you the option to lift the limit by paying $10/GB for the data you use past 15GB in a given cycle.

It's literally impossible to reach 250GB without paying extra. After being throttled the most you'd be able to download is 82.94GB, assuming you were downloading things non-stop at the maximum speed for 30 days.

On the higher range, but if you consider that it is global LTE data, it is an amazing deal, particularly if you use more than 6GB/month.

Being able to land or drive into a country and have LTE working without having to do anything is amazing, especially when going through several countries.

I am seriously looking at this as being cheaper than the local phone plans in my country.

Some places have seriously screwy cell pricing, signing up to this would be cheaper for data.

We pay a lot in the US but it sure doesn't sound cheap to me. I must be misunderstanding something.

I pay, I think, $40/mo for 6GB with no phones and then $25/line to add unlocked phones. so I guess $90/6GB? I'm FAR from being on the cheapest plan in the world, but Google's plan starts at $35 for the same 2 lines, with NO data, then $10/GB?

So this groundbreaking new plan would be $5 more than I pay, and I ALREADY am sure I'm overpaying because I don't shop around.

Oh, wait, 'free' (throttled?) after 6GB. That's where the 'deal' comes in. Still, 6GB is about right for us. I'm sure if I shopped around I could do better, but last time ATT gave me a 'deal' they lied to me about saving my BYOD pricing and suddenly I was paying $40 per line for phones I paid $700+ for.

Allegedly you don't get throttled until you exceed 15GB.

> Oh, wait, 'free' (throttled?) after 6GB

For two lines, it's free after 10GB total. Each line is throttled (independent of number of lines) separately at 15GB.

Man, that's amazing. Here in the US, I have 5 GB / "unlimited" low-speed data, for $70/month.

FWIW I have a T-Mobile prepaid plan, and it's 10GB for $50/month. (Obviously T-Mobile's coverage is not as good as, say, Verizon's.)

Verizon prepaid is also not a bad deal. 8GB for $50/month. You can get $5/mo off if you auto pay and $15 off for multi-line. It's going to be very hard for Fi to be anything other than a niche provider unless they improve their data pricing.

wait, what? I have T-mobile as well, and they told me that was the cheapest plan they offered. What is your plan called?

Wow. I've got 8GB high speed 4G for £30, and I had the phone thrown in for free (Pixel 2)! Incredible how data varies so much in price from country to country.

Same question.

I live in France, I'm subscribed to the most expensive operator (Orange), and even then I get unlimited call/text and 10 Gigabytes of data (in 4G) for less than 25 € per month (~roughly 28 dollars).

These prices look like a joke to me, but it might be a US thing.

France prices are only due to Free mobile. Before they came up with their 20€ a month plan with unlimited everything, the other operators mobile plans had prices similar to the US, 60 to 80 € a month for unlimited everything.

There was rumors of free mobile acquiring T-Mobile sometime last year, that would have been awesome for US consumers...

That same 20€/mo plan gives 25GB of data to use abroad, which makes project fi a less interesting option in France.

While you’re right that Free Mobile indeed had a big impact on prices in France, I’m pretty sure prices before Free were closer to 30-50 € euro a month and not 60-80.

With that said, data usage habits also did change between 2012 and now. I was happy with 500 Mo/month back in 2011. I would have trouble living with that now.

I mean, I think you could say the same about practically anywhere in Europe. Irish mobile prices were horrendous until Three showed up in the early noughties, say. But that's the past.

German prices are still weirdly high, mind you.

Fi works best for low data usage.

If you don't use much data, the price can be a good deal.

If you use a lot of data, other US carriers offer much better deals.

US has one of the worst mobile data in the world. I remember having to pay around $30 for ~3 - 5 GB of mobile data the last time I visited US. Worst of all the connection speed was pathetic. And it was not even 4G. When I visited Thailand recently I got unlimited 6 mbps 4G mobile data for a week for around 8 dollars. India on the other hand have carriers offering 4G data at around $0.08 per GB. US definitely have to step up its mobile data game.

You should be getting LTE and decent connection speeds in most metro areas of the US. What carrier were you using, and what part of the country were you in?

T-Mobile. I was traveling through California, Oregon, and Nevada.

That's a pretty big travel area, and T-Mobile's core network doesn't work well outside urban centers. (Rural coverage has historically been better on Verizon.)

T-Mobile's Extended Range network (LTE Band 12) has substantially improved their rural coverage lately, but is only supported on the US version of major cell phones. If your phone was purchased outside the US/Canada, it probably didn't have Band 12 support. There's a table here (the specific model number is important, in this case): http://www.spectrumgateway.com/compatible-phones

If you weren't picking up LTE, that also suggests to me you might have been having issues related to Band 12.

But outside that, near any mid-sized population centers (where Band 12 isn't needed), you should've had a fast signal. Especially in California. I just ran a speed test on my phone, running T-Mobile in suburban California, and got 90 Mbps down / 40 Mbps up. That's faster than my home internet connection.

I was on T-Mobile too with a EU phone. If you are using a EU phone, there is compatibility problems with the T-Mobile network. Unfortunately, I only learned about that from my friends after I bought your safe offer. The sales person didn't warn me in advance.

We’re you using a local sim or or international plan? International plan users get kinda screwed with speeds. Was just in France with T-Mobile and service was horrible there too.

I took a local T mobile sim. I was hardly able to do anything meaningful with the mobile data plan.

Can you paste some of the 8 cent Indian offers here? I’m very curious.

:( In Canada, I pay ~70$ for 6GB and unlimited calls/text

Yeah, Canadian cell plans were a shock coming from the UK. I'm paying 50$ for 5GB and unlimited calls/texts with Freedom, but that only works for me as I spend most of my time in Vancouver.

Its fairly on the expensive side. The nice part is they prorate the cost to your actual usage. If you have variable data rates such as months you travel and months you're mostly on wifi, its fine.

I end up spending ~$35-40/mo on average with peace of mind of unlimited data. The charge also caps out at 6GB I think so the max bill is $80 or something like that.

>Is 10$/GB a reasonable price in the US?

They cap the $10/GB at 6, so it's effectively an unlimited talk/text/data plan for $80/month which is about average in the US.

I pay $12/month with tracfone, which includes 250MB of data, and “enough” voice and texts.

Additional data is $10/GB, and doesn’t expire. There is no point where it switches to unlimited like google fi.

I can choose the same three networks as Fi, but can’t roam between them.

Overall, Fi seems kinda overpriced, at least for me, because the monthly cost is so high (for unlimited voice and texts I don’t need).

It is way better than any of the “big three” cell plans though.

Not if you can get on a family plan.

T-Mobile has unlimited data for $40/line for 4 lines, if everyone uses at least 2 GB that makes more sense.

Indian prices for comparison: https://shop.vodafone.in/shop/prepaid/special-offers.jsp?Typ...

Wait, why is this site in English? According to Google, only 10% of the Indian population speaks English.

Those 10% also tend to recharge online :D

It's unreasonable, but standard.

It's the same in Canada: a Rogers data only plan is $60 CAD for first 5GB and $20 CAD for each 10GB after that...

It's one of the cheaper plans in the US.

I essentially never use data. I haven't used more than 50mb in years because I am always within wifi range or only using my phones for SMS and phonecalls.

I don't know why cellphone service is so expensive in the US, but it seems difficult to find anything cheaper than $20 a month. Typical plans here for a single user and ~10gb of data is going to be $40-$60 a month.

>I don't know why cellphone service is so expensive in the US,

I suspect size has a lot to do with it. The US is the 3rd largest country in the world. Sure, Canada is bigger but at almost 1/10th the people and I suspect the country has far less coverage than the US.

Just look at coverage maps for the US then keep in mind how many square miles you're looking at and you can easily think "yeah, that can be expensive".

Yeah, they're pocketing a lot of profit and mostly relying on government funding to expand their networks but still, I just don't think we could go as cheap as laces like India.

The way the FCC handles spectrum also doesn't help.

It's pretty standard. Building a wireless network in the US is VERY expensive, between FCC spectrum auctions, the vast amount of rural areas, and the fact that each individual municipality can make building a tower a huge pain with different regulations it's surprising cell phone plans are as cheap as they are.

No, it's not reasonable. T Mobile is at $70 for 50gb, $1.4 per (at 50gb they change your priority; on the surface they claim unlimited data of course).

To make proper comparisons on prices paid between countries, you need to consider income levels in the country in question, not just the price unto itself.

I think that calculation omits a critical number: how much data you actually use. If you pay for 50GB but only use 5GB, your price per GB is effectively 10x. With Fi you will never pay for more than 10 / GB used, but you will pay less if you exceed 6GB in a month.

Further, you don't pay in GB "blocks". I used 1.021 GB last month so I paid $10.21, instead of $20 like you may expect.

It's not normal, $10/GB for -overage- is normal.

Do you live in France?

I have friends in India who claim to pay 10 cents per GB.

Being from India, I confirm this. Broadband plans cost around that. Mobile 4G plans are around 6$ per month for 1.5GB per day of usage. Though the speeds are more like 3G.

Speed depends upon the place you live. I used to get around 30 - 35 Mbps while I visited Tamil Nadu. On the other hand I hardly gets 1 Mbps speed in my home town.

Its expensive but has some benefits that other carriers dont.

Works in 100+ countries for that price. I have Fi but live in Canada and travel and work in the US. Canadian phone plans are even more expensive and US roaming can add $30+ a month to a plan. Fi gives me $10/GB in Canada where I use very little data (work from home so always on wifi) and then $10/GB in the US without extra roaming options.

There is a data bill cap at $60 or 6GB of data. Once you hit $60 you still get full speed data up to 15GB then it throttles down.

$10/GB is great for variable data use. Some months I use 500MB so the bill is cheap. Other months I hit 4GB, bill is more but then I dont have to pay for data I am not using.

No charge data only SIM cards. I have three extra SIM cards that cost me nothing. One for an LTE hotspot, one for my wifes iPhone while in the US and a third that I will use for a backup LTE connection. They cost me nothing but the data used.