I abandoned Fi after a trip to western Europe, where I was billed for 6 GB of usage in a single day on one of my data-only SIM cards, despite that the device the SIM was installed in (a 4G hotspot) registered only 200MB of usage that day.
Support was completely unhelpful, and after escalation reported back that the Fi team has zero visibility into chargebacks from their carrier partners and ergo could not diagnose the cause of the usage discrepancy. The lack of accountability on Fi's part, in addition to various annoyances (handset tendency to select Sprint coverage despite poor performance; handset tendency to override manual carrier selection to the detriment of service reliability; generally worse reliability and coverage than my previous carrier) led me to move back to Verizon. I pay an arm and a leg for my service, but at least it's highly reliable and available.
I just went to western Europe (Germany specifically), and spend 15 Euros for phone service there. It's simple: I just bought a SIM card at a shop (O2) and put it in my Verizon phone. I got a prepaid card that had unlimited text/calls (within Germany only), and 3GB of data, which was far more than enough for my 2 weeks there.
Cellular service is much cheaper in Europe than in the US, so you might as well take advantage of it. International calling plans for American phones are horrendously overpriced.
Of course, the downside is that I couldn't call or text anyone in the States, but who cares? That's what apps are for. I was able to talk to and message friends/family in the US using Facebook messenger and LINE. While on my hotel's free WiFi, my VoIP calls cost me nothing.
In Germany, they want your passport and an address to register a SIM. It's not one of the worst countries for buying a SIM, but it's not one of the best. Last time it took me trips to 3 or 4 stores and at least 90 minutes to get a SIM.
This is a fairly new requirement; it used to be possible to buy a SIM anonymously in Germany. Apparently some politician said "but terrorists" and put a stop to that.
The same 3 GB of data would have costed you $30 with Fi (or less if you were already near/over the 6 GB threshold). Given that 15 EUR is about 18 USD, you essentially saved 12 USD.
Personally, I would have gladly paid $12 to not have to go to a store in foreign country, switch SIM cards, have to worry about hitting the 3 GB limit, lose the ability to call or text anyone in the states, etc. But to each, their own.
>The same 3 GB of data would have costed you $30 with Fi. Given that 15 EUR is about 18 USD, you essentially saved 12 USD.
First, EUR15 is about USD$17.25 for me, or it was when I was there. 1.2 is a lousy exchange rate.
Anyway, that quibble aside, saving $12 is more that worth it: having to use Fi at home would mean having to use the T-Mobile network, which in the US is absolutely horrible. I've used T-Mo in the past, as well as Sprint, and they're both lousy; they just don't have very good signal quality, especially if you get outside a major metro area.
>Personally, I would have gladly paid $12 to not have to go to a store in foreign country,
Personally, I would gladly pay $12/month to use a cellular network that doesn't suck in the US.
>have to worry about hitting the 3 GB limit
They have prepaid plans there with lots of different data allowances: 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc. Pick whatever works for you. I didn't come close to using my 3GB, and could have saved even more money by getting one of the smaller plans.
>lose the ability to call or text anyone in the states,
As I said before, I had no trouble using apps like LINE to do this, and was frequently sending texts and photos to people that way while I was walking around. If your friends are too stupid to use a messaging app instead of SMS, then I can't help you. SMS is the worst way of texting. But, to each their own.
Note that this option may have some limitations depending on the country: Turkey blocks the IMEI of unregistered devices after 120 days, so if you plan to travel there multiple times, you may be out of luck (AFAIK only residents can register their device). So it is definitely worth checking the rules before traveling to a country.
My son will be traveling to Europe this summer for a school trip. He'll be spending time in 6 or 7 different countries (UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and a couple more I can't remember right now)
Is there a better option than Fi for this type of trip?
Roaming charges inside of the EU were eliminated in 2017, so a single prepaid SIM (readily available for a few dollars) would do him well inside of the EU. Make sure that he has a phone that's not vendor locked. That doesn't include Switzerland, and may not include the UK by the summer, but the SIM will still work there, just with additional charges (which are usually fairly reasonable).
Any prepaid sim will let you roam, if you’re really worried get one from Three and it will work in the states too. Local calls will be routed back to the country where the sim came from, so actually using the phone for traditional voice calls will be pricey. Lebara UK has a cheap plan with 100 international minutes and a few gigs of data for like £10/30 days (last time I used it) and can be bought from any phone shop
edit I checked the Lebara data rates and it’s all included in the normal quota, except for Switzerland at £15/MB, so... maybe not
Definitely get a cheap sim card wherever he lands. The EU abolished all roaming charges for data and calls so he'll be able to use whatever data and calls he has in all EU countries.
Some countries have extremely good value pre paid sim cards with 20 gigs of data often coming in under €20 a month.
I've been to Europe a few times lately and I'm a massive fan of Vodafone's coverage and offerings. The only issue I had was the lack of tethering on a prepaid SIM, but the free wifi everywhere I went was normally good enough to use for anything I needed.
picked up a one month sim in romania for $7. 20 gig of 4g data, 1000 min of call, unlimited text. calls were supposedly limited to romania but i called usa a few times without issue.
One of the bigger reasons I switched to Verizon was specifically coverage. There are a lot of areas (wyoming, dakotas, parts of idaho and northern utah and nevada) that I drive through where Verizon is the only carrier with any coverage.
I couldn't be convinced to switch to Fi, and frankly given the horror stories, not sure that I trust google should I ever fall afoul of their platform exclusion and zero support or transparency.
I don't even have a passport currently. If I did travel, I'm more likely to buy a throwaway cell with a different account and add the number to my google voice account dialing...
If you're stuck in rural US, then you should use Verizon for it's older CDMA networks. Spending extra money and going through the hassle of getting another phone while traveling is a personal preference it seems, but for people who do travel it's one less thing to worry about.
I got out of mobile development because of the dark abyss that was payments from the carriers. None of the places I worked at ever knew how big the next check was going to be and why it never matched up with our metrics.
I used to describe them as 'animals eating their own young'. VC money goes into a company, mobile carrier gets all the profits (and often, thousands of hours of free QA), company craters.
Support was completely unhelpful, and after escalation reported back that the Fi team has zero visibility into chargebacks from their carrier partners and ergo could not diagnose the cause of the usage discrepancy. The lack of accountability on Fi's part, in addition to various annoyances (handset tendency to select Sprint coverage despite poor performance; handset tendency to override manual carrier selection to the detriment of service reliability; generally worse reliability and coverage than my previous carrier) led me to move back to Verizon. I pay an arm and a leg for my service, but at least it's highly reliable and available.