SIAP: Google Fi

[brahmanknight]

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/project-fi.html

In today's mobile world, fast and reliable connectivity is almost second nature. But even in places like the U.S., where mobile connections are nearly ubiquitous, there are still times when you turn to your phone for that split-second answer and don't have fast enough speed. Or you can't get calls and texts because you left your phone in a taxi (or it got lost in a couch cushion for the day). As mobile devices continually improve how you connect to people and information, it's important that wireless connectivity and communication keep pace and be fast everywhere, easy to use, and accessible to everyone.

That's why today we’re introducing Project Fi, a program to explore this opportunity by introducing new ideas through a fast and easy wireless experience. Similar to our Nexus hardware program, Project Fi enables us to work in close partnership with leading carriers, hardware makers, and all of you to push the boundaries of what's possible. By designing across hardware, software and connectivity, we can more fully explore new ways for people to connect and communicate. Two of the top mobile networks in the U.S.—Sprint and T-Mobile—are partnering with us to launch Project Fi and now you can be part of the project too.

Be part of the project from the start
We're beginning Project Fi's Early Access Program to invite people to sign up for the service. Project Fi will be available on the Nexus 6, which we developed with Motorola and is the first smartphone that supports the hardware and software to work with our service. If you live where we have coverage in the U.S., request an invite at fi.google.com to get started.

We look forward to connecting!

 

[Brandon]

Not sure if it will be cheaper than other services... you are apparently paying for the data you use. I have a grandfathered unlimited Verizon plan and would only switch for another unlimited plan. I'm not a data hog like some but if I watch some ESPN3 or MLBTV stuff it doesn't take much to get to 10GB monthly or more.

 

[UCF w00t]

Yeah it really depends on your usage. But those unlimited plans are a thing of the past. Hold onto it for as long as you can. I have a friend that's a PI and he routinely uses 50GB in a month on his unlimited plan.

This is definitely the cheapest I'm aware of. I'm on Cricket now which gives me 2.5GB for $35/month. The good thing is that if I go over that it just goes slower until the next month. No overages (unless I want LTE back and choose to add more LTE data for an extra cost).

The most exciting part of this to me is the decoupling of the phone number from the phone/sim card. I'm just disappointed that Microsoft isn't going in this direction to some extent. They have the infrastructure with Skype. This really seems to be the future to me. Apple is sorta doing it but they're doing it at the device level. Google will be doing it at the service provider level which I think is a much better way.

 

[USFSucks]

I've got a grandfathered unlimited AT&T Plan so I would be in the same boat as Brandon.

 

[UCFEE]

I could see this brining down the cost of mobile services. I think the idea is for voice to be over VoIP (no no separate voice/data plan), and you would only need to use your cellular data when away from any kind of WiFi. If the device is able to seamlessly transition from cellular to any available WiFi as you travel, you wouldn't really need a bulky data plan, and I expect public WiFi access to be even more available than it already is in the next few years...

Any extra competition in this arena is good IMO.

 

[UCF w00t]

I could see this brining down the cost of mobile services. I think the idea is for voice to be over VoIP (no no separate voice/data plan), and you would only need to use your cellular data when away from any kind of WiFi. If the device is able to seamlessly transition from cellular to any available WiFi as you travel, you wouldn't really need a bulky data plan, and I expect public WiFi access to be even more available than it already is in the next few years...

Any extra competition in this arena is good IMO.

Data is still handled a bit differently than voice on carrier networks. For the next several years at least true VoIP where voice is just treated as data is not feasible. VoLTE is definitely going to start taking over but that is still a dedicated technology for voice, albeit based on IP technology and not really "VoIP" in the more standard sense. Think about what happens when you're at a football game. You might be able to make a phone call or send a text but your data will be shit.

The move to free voice calls and SMS and just charging for data is already happening (happened?). Google is furthering the price reduction but I also think they're using their other businesses to prop up this service. I can't imagine they will be making much, if any, money on this. Also, high quality voice if done truly over IP is actually kinda data intensive so you would most definitely need a fat data plan if you're making a lot of voice calls over your cell connection. Sure, there's a lot of people that sit at work on their company's WiFi and barely use their cell radio. But there's a lot of people (myself included) that can't do that and use their cell radio quite a bit.

To me the real future is not WiFi. I'm surprised it's persevered as much as it has. We need better long range technology, not extremely limited range WiFi. These days the bottle necks aren't the phones, it's the towers.

 

[UCFEE]

Google is also pushing for widespread municipal WiFi services, so this project is likely coupled directly to that. (Edit: I take that back, muni-WiFi isn't a Google project but several areas are looking at developing such projects). WiFi can work well over a large area if the handoffs between access points are smooth.

I think this project will depend on WiFi becoming more widespread, with cellular becoming more of a "fringe" service for when you're in the exurbs where WiFi isn't available, so low quality voice over data would be available but rare.

 

[UCF w00t]

This is kinda a gap in my understanding of how it all works but to me it seems like WiFi, from a frequency and spectrum standpoint, is geared towards short areas. LTE is meant as a broad reach. Why should we try to sprinkle tons of access points all over the place when we already have technology made to cover wide areas? Would running massive WiFi networks really be much cheaper? What's preventing the carriers from scaling up to being able to handle more bandwidth and thus lower per byte data costs? I believe the overload actually happens at a electromagnetic level, and not really a hardware level. I've heard it mentioned that simply adding more towers and fatter fiber connections to the existing towers doesn't help because the airwaves are overloaded.

It's certainly possible to improve on these aspects in saturated environments. They do it with WiFi in stadiums now but even that is extremely bleeding edge at the moment and very difficult and expensive. They can also boost cell capacity by bringing in temporary trucks/trailers (referred to as COWs) for events so I'm sure they can do this to some extent on a more permanent basis.

 

[rulethirty]

Grandfathered into at&t's plan. I'd love to jump ship, but paying for data by the gig is terrifying.

The concept is enough for me to almost consider leaving the apple ecosystem though. Almost.

 

[UCFEE]

This is kinda a gap in my understanding of how it all works but to me it seems like WiFi, from a frequency and spectrum standpoint, is geared towards short areas. LTE is meant as a broad reach. Why should we try to sprinkle tons of access points all over the place when we already have technology made to cover wide areas? Would running massive WiFi networks really be much cheaper? What's preventing the carriers from scaling up to being able to handle more bandwidth and thus lower per byte data costs? I believe the overload actually happens at a electromagnetic level, and not really a hardware level. I've heard it mentioned that simply adding more towers and fatter fiber connections to the existing towers doesn't help because the airwaves are overloaded.

It's certainly possible to improve on these aspects in saturated environments. They do it with WiFi in stadiums now but even that is extremely bleeding edge at the moment and very difficult and expensive. They can also boost cell capacity by bringing in temporary trucks/trailers (referred to as COWs) for events so I'm sure they can do this to some extent on a more permanent basis.

Yea, you're right about spectrum use being a problem and I think that's going to affect the long range cellular providers more than anyone else. That may be another one of Google's motivations, to offload some of that cellular voice and data traffic to WiFi.

Google may also be looking foward to the power law economy (see New World Order in Foreign Affairs magazine, it's a few MIT guy's take on the new economy). If a larger percentage of people are going to have significantly less disposable income, it's going to become very important to leverage technology to help maintain a minimum standard of living for a large proportion of citizens... So easier/cheaper (or free) access to communication systems will become more imporant, and a company like Google that sees the bigger picture may be getting ahead of that... Prioritizing projects to quell future social upheaval over projects with a higher NPV makes sense in the context of the power law economy (OK I'm done with my tangent)

 

[crambone]

I used to have the Sprint unlimited plan until I finally realized that I never had data coverage with that shite company.

So now I am on the AT&T Friends/Family plan with my wife and parents. We share 10GB per month and have the rollover. Due to all 4 of us using Wifi at our homes and jobs we have 8GB roll over every month. I could stream Netflix all day and still not put a dent in our overall amount.

 

[aent]

Data is still handled a bit differently than voice on carrier networks. For the next several years at least true VoIP where voice is just treated as data is not feasible. VoLTE is definitely going to start taking over but that is still a dedicated technology for voice, albeit based on IP technology and not really "VoIP" in the more standard sense. Think about what happens when you're at a football game. You might be able to make a phone call or send a text but your data will be shit.

The move to free voice calls and SMS and just charging for data is already happening (happened?). Google is furthering the price reduction but I also think they're using their other businesses to prop up this service. I can't imagine they will be making much, if any, money on this. Also, high quality voice if done truly over IP is actually kinda data intensive so you would most definitely need a fat data plan if you're making a lot of voice calls over your cell connection. Sure, there's a lot of people that sit at work on their company's WiFi and barely use their cell radio. But there's a lot of people (myself included) that can't do that and use their cell radio quite a bit.

To me the real future is not WiFi. I'm surprised it's persevered as much as it has. We need better long range technology, not extremely limited range WiFi. These days the bottle necks aren't the phones, it's the towers.

google fi uses voip for its calls if you're in a range of a wifi network. Also google fi will connect to everyone's wifi network automatically that it can (unsecured or otherwise public) and then route it through their VPN to provide secure communications, which will not incur as much data use. Nearly everywhere I go these days has free wifi outside of my car, I'm just bad at connecting to it or do not trust it... if the phone successfully takes care of that problem... my data usage would go down drastically.