berdinkerdickle

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The part that initially confused me was the cost of data. $10 per Gigabyte.
Right now I get 10 Gigabytes for $80 on Verizon.
Also, because I'm out of Contract, I only pay $15 for unlimited talk & text
So, at face value, it doesn't appear that GoogleFi is much cheaper.
But then I considered that GoogleFi uses free WiFi whenever possible.
So does your data usage actually go down using GoogleFi - resulting in needing a lot smaller data package ?
 

Almeuit

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It is basically good for people who use lower data plans -- Also as you said you have your device paid off. Most consumers are not like that.
 

Andrew Martonik

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The part that initially confused me was the cost of data. $10 per Gigabyte.
Right now I get 10 Gigabytes for $80 on Verizon.
Also, because I'm out of Contract, I only pay $15 for unlimited talk & text
So, at face value, it doesn't appear that GoogleFi is much cheaper.
But then I considered that GoogleFi uses free WiFi whenever possible.
So does your data usage actually go down using GoogleFi - resulting in needing a lot smaller data package ?

Don't expect your data usage to go down dramatically if you go over to Fi. Even in a dense city with a higher than usual amount of "open" Wifi networks here in Seattle, your phone won't end up on Wifi that often. Remember that the Fi software will only connect to a Wifi network that is 100% open — aka no password, no splash page, no "click here to accept terms and connect" or anything like that. Lots of "open" networks have these kinds of restrictions, and Fi isn't going to auto-connect to those.

Of course you can manually connect to networks as you always would, but if you're not doing that now, you probably won't start just because you're on Fi.

As Almeuit said, Fi really is only good for folks who use smaller amount of data monthly, I'd say ~5GB of data or less. Once you get above that point, and you use that amount of data regularly, the other carriers start to offer better deals. AT&T and Verizon both have pretty good prices for large data buckets (as well as family sharing), and at that price T-Mobile also has unlimited high speed data.

Though Fi isn't really undercutting the competition on data prices, it does have the leg up of refunding you for unused data. So if you pay $30 for 3GB of data but only use 1.8GB in a month, you'll get back $12 on your next bill. That's better than something like T-Mobile's Data Stash, even, since most people would rather just have the money back than just stockpile data they'll never use.

The fact that you get refunded also kind of turns saving data into a game, giving you that extra incentive to leave Wifi on, maybe manually join some networks that Fi can't join automatically, and things of that sort. Having a straight cash incentive for staying on Wifi helps you save data, but only if you're interested in going along with the system. On the flip side, some people prefer to have their bill be the same every month and not think about data like that.