Leaving Google Project Fi Cell Service

Goodbye, Project Fi.

It is with a heavy heart that I have to say goodbye to Google’s Project Fi. I was very excited when I first heard about their plans to combine cell providers and seamlessly switch between cell and wifi calling. With baited breath, I signed up and waited for their invitation. It came and I immediately signed up.

Service was ok. Wifi calling was tolerable. Then, over a period of time, it got bad.

I had not been on a limited cell service in a long time and it changed the way I interacted with my phone. I was constantly watching the amount of data, concerned that I would have to pay more if something started downloading a large file. I installed a VPN and one day, it did just that. Since my calls were going over wifi/data, the VPN used 500MB in one 3-hour period. I was livid.

The switching from wifi to cell DATA took too long, timed out web pages and was a pain when the signal was weak. This was what actually made me cancel their service.

After an upgrade to Marshmallow, the service has been very bad. Call quality went straight to hell. Still on limited data. I contacted Google every time I had a gripe, and sometimes they returned the message with doing something on their end that helped for a while. Sometimes they sent me instructions for lollipop, when I had sent them a message stating that I was on Marshmallow.

So, today I switched back to an unlimited provider. Ahhh… Now I can watch youtube while outside without concern.

The are things you must know about transferring over from Google Project Fi to another carrier:

You use the Project Fi app to “cancel” your service before the other carrier can take it. The good thing is that Google explains that they make sure the number is ported over properly. In the app, you manage plan and at the bottom hit the cancel service option. It verifies this, then verifies if you want to switch to another carrier or just want to cancel or want to port it to hangouts.

You don’t have an account number or password UNTILL YOU CANCEL THE SERVICE! So you have to go through this process just to get an account number and password to transfer.

Most people havent heard of Google Fi, so be prepared to educate the new carrier’s employees.

Good luck, Google!