Any Google Fi customers on MB? I'm considering leaving V's unlimited data behind!
 

innerspaceboy has this crazy idea...

It looks like I avg 11-15GB a month and peak at 120GB of data usage on my cell.

Thus far keeping my grandfathered-in unlimited data plan has been the clear choice. But after the last price hike, I'm paying $117 a month for one phone.

I'm thinking about Project Fi. $20 per month for unlimited talk and text, and you buy whatever data you want at $10 per gigabyte. Unused GBs are credited back to the user. It's only available on a few Nexus devices but I'm a big fan of the series.

Considerations:

I spend 99% of my life in a one-mile radius of my village. Every day. At home, I've got 65kbps FiOS so I'd just hop on my WiFi every time I walk in the door.

The cafe I visit on weekends for research/writing also has free and reliable Wi-Fi, as do most of the places I frequent in the city.

The Test:

I'm going to spend a few weeks living off Wi-Fi to see what impact it has on my data usage. On paper, if I hit 9GB I still come out ahead. I'm going to try to keep it around 3GB which would effectively cut my bill in half after taxes and fees.

Potential annual savings at 3GB = $684. Worth looking into!

Are there any Fi customers on MB? I'd love to hear about your experience with the service!

http://i.imgur.com/UrsXoEBl.jpg

How many gigs do they give you upfront before you have to pay $10 per gig? Is it 0 gigs + $10 per gig?

Either way, you'd be saving quite a bit, and if you're on Wi-Fi 99% of the time, that would help too. I just left Sprint for the same reason, as they wanted $14.99 per gig if I went over my data cap. No thanks. I'll be saving $540 per year, abouts.

That's right - you pay per GB straight away. I thought that I'd have to stick with my unlimited data plan forever, but when I re-frame my activities in the context of the Wi-Fi ready environments I'm in all day long, this really sounds like a potential solution.

Thanks for your input.

I've not looked into Google Fi, but there are several companies who offer no-contract plans where they use the large carriers' networks. The only thing is that you can't get the latest and greatest cell phones on the market. For me, that's no big deal, as a phone is not my primary Internet device.

Cheers.

I'd rather hatch a billion fire ants in my skull

Now this I'd like to see.

Make sure you record this using your new Google Fi camera's selfie mode.

Do you plan to expound or are you content just leaving that extreme position? Do you have a particular hatred of Google? Are you an Apple fanboy? Do you have a fire ant fetish? Please, enlighten us.

^ It's more of a "fuck Google" thing

I have Boost Mobile. Unlimited everything for $55/month with no contract. I've used them since 2009 with no problems, and have only gone through two phones in that time, a POS Blackberry and now a Kyocera Android I've had for 5 years, but you can use Boost on all the major phones too.

Absolutely no offense to you - and I sincerely appreciate your offering what is a very cost-effective solution - it's simply that Boost's business model, technology profile, parent company, and marketing strategies are not something I can align myself with as a consumer.

But thank you - it's important that I educate myself to all potential solutions.

If I went to Boost, I'd lose unlimited/un-throttles data, I'd lose the free-cheap first-tier $600-$800 phone every 2 years, and I'd save 5 bucks/month. I think I'll stay put.

BTW I also get unlimited messaging. My minutes technically aren't unlimited but I'm allotted 450/month and I typically use 50.

Straight away, being a Sprint network service the signal would be absolute garbage in most regions. (See Verizon and AT&T's cartel distributions of territory for the backstory on how this came to be.)

Boost's walkie-talkie push-to-talk crap was the single most irritating piece of technology of the late 1990s and early 2000s. I'd prayed to god that he'd struck down anyone carrying a device with that blasted feature enabled.

But even with all that aside, their bottom-of-the-barrel Marketing is sufficient to make any reasonable customer embarrassed to be within 25 feet of a Boost phone. (From Wiki -)

Well, then, sign me up good sir!

You know, the Intelligencia. Wait a sec... is there seriously someone named, "The Game" ? Is he a toddler?

Now you've got my attention. I can think of no finer way to spend an afternoon than watching vehicles driving in circles at dangerous speeds.

Are Super Bowls really still a thing?
You said a bunch of words. I don't know what they are.

Well if a multi-million dollar ball dribbler can get paid to push their crap, you know if must be good.

"Where you AT?!"

tl,dr

Seriously Paul? Twice in three days you can't be bothered to read a few words but feel sufficiently adamant about it to post "tl;dr" ?

Are books troubling for you as well?

"tl;dr" is a war cry of apathy and disinterest. Not something I'd encourage as a token response.

If reading is that difficult, I'd suggest exploring alternative avenues of social engagement than a text-based forum.

My aim is not to be contentious, but to give you an opportunity to curb a truly bad habit.

I'd usually agree, but Paul has had some brain surgery so I give him a pass on stuff like that.

Thank you. I'm also visually impaired (I see nothing to the right of my nose). I'm letting you know I couldn't read your post.

Brain surgery

http://www.musicbanter.com/members/p...narly-head.jpg

I remember reading about that before you rejoined the forum. What was that for if you don't mind me asking?

Arteriovenous Malformation


http://www.taafonline.org/_images//F...al_anatomy.jpg

Sorry you had to go through that.

Thank you :)

http://cdn2.gurl.com/wp-content/uplo...cra2o1_500.gif

So, basically you didn't like them doing urban marketing to the people that would most likely buy their product? Ummm okay.

They knew their demo and marketed to them like any reasonable business that wants to profit. :bonkhead:

Crikey, if ever there were a valid reason for a tl;dr... I doff my hat to you sir.

My two concrete reasons for abstaining from Boost membership are the aforementioned issues of terrible signal quality (the result of Verizon/AT&T's mob-like activities) and their perpetuation of the horrendous walk-talkie push-to-talk technology which plagued the planet for a decade.

The soapbox bits are just icing on the cake.

But yes - I am absolutely a pretentious knob. Guilty as charged and proudly so.

Hey, no problem. Didn't know you had personal issues with Boost. Good luck in your endeavor.