After moving into a new home recently, I found that my phone wasn’t getting reception in one of our bathrooms, which everyone knows is an inexcusable offense. I had already been kicking around the idea of switching phone providers for a while anyway, so we decided to give Google Fi a shot. Fi is Google’s phone service that effectively acts as an amalgam of T-Mobile, Spring, and U.S. Cellular networks. I’ve only ever talked to one other person who was a Fi subscriber five years ago, so I didn’t know what to expect. Despite that, I decided that drastic situations require drastic measures and clicked the dreaded Find Out More button in the latest spam email Google sent me about it.
We’ll start with the migration process. Knowing Verizon, I was fully prepared to sit on the phone for hours with a rep trying to port our phone numbers over and cancel service. The process was significantly easier than that, with zero time spent on the phone and ~5 minutes spent generating a transfer PIN on Verizon’s website. After that, we waited for our new phones, finalized the number transfer on them, and automatically canceled our Verizon service. Completely painless.
As far as the signal goes, it’s hard to speak to the reliability just yet. I can say that signal in our home/neighborhood has been significantly better, and I’ve had zero signal drops while in the loop earlier this week. It’s already a better experience, but I’m not ready to 100% recommend it yet.
The last thing is price. Cat and I decided to finance new Pixel 6 phones alongside the phone service. I’ve had a Pixel 2 XL for about four years, and while it was still as reliable as the day I got it, I wanted a fresh start on something that was still actively receiving updates from Google. Even with the new phones, our monthly bill is $70/mo cheaper than Verizon.
While it pains me to say nice things about Google, Fi seems like a good option for phone service, particularly if you’re an Android user in the market for a phone upgrade. We’re delighted with the switch so far across the board and plan to stay on Fi for the foreseeable future.