Project Fi

So I'm on Day 2 of using Google as my cell phone provider. It's been really interesting, which is saying a lot from someone who considers himself a know-it-all when it comes to cell tech. ;) I discovered that Hangouts is what really powers Project Fi, not traditional voice/sms technology. Updates to the Hangouts app have a direct impact on Project Fi services and features. Having been a longtime user of Google Voice, and having used it through Hangouts for a while now, it makes sense, somewhat. Whereas Google Voice forwarded calls and text messages over the traditional wireless network, Project Fi goes straight through Hangouts and then interacts with the Dialer/Messenger apps (or whatever you're using for SMS messaging). So why not just do my messaging inside of Hangouts? A couple of reasons. The biggest one being that while group MMS messaging is supported in Hangouts, you can't /initiate/ a group MMS conversation from Hangouts. This is reportedly very, very close to being integrated. Another is that the Hangouts app can have a tendency to compress images and video too much through MMS, but that's being rectified as well. Third, there's no actionable notifications and quick reply with Hangouts like there is with the Messenger app, and I use those a lot.

One BIG advantage that Project Fi has over Google Voice is that the visual voicemail (text and all) is directly integrated in Recents in the Dialer. With GV, you had to tell it to show voicemails there, and even then, you could only play them from there. If you pipe voicemail from Fi/GV through Hangouts, you get everything there too, but I really like that it's directly integrated in the Dialer (see photo). Transcriptions have gotten light-years better over the past few months (though they're still not perfect), so this really, really useful now. Other GV features hold over as well. I can forward my calls to multiple phones, see my messages on the web, etc. There was a lot of hubub out there about how Fi ruins your GV account, but for my use, it's only enhanced it by making it a seamless cell provider all the way through. And if I cancel Fi (not sure why I ever would), my GV account reverts back to normal GV account. No big deal.

The service is great, in all aspects. There is a very active invite-only G+ community where Fi engineers interact directly with users along with 24/7 phone/chat/email support. I chatted with a support tech yesterday who solved my issue in just a few minutes and didn't read from a script. It was awesome. Coverage-wise, I've noticed no worse coverage than I got with T-Mobile, and because it works with both T-Mobile and Sprint, I should actually have fallback in some areas where I didn't have great coverage before. It's not going to rival AT&T or Verizon, but between T-Mobile, Sprint, and WiFi calling support, I'm covered very, very nicely. Calls transition from WiFi to network and back with no hiccups, too. It's all smooth, seamless, and works great.

Getting in on the ground level of something like this is fascinating. I'm spending all day just refreshing the Project Fi community, watching issues, feature requests, announcements, and actual interaction between Google and the community of users. It won't always be this way, but for now, it's awesome to see a provider truly invested in it's users and feedback, actively making changes and improvements.

Fi has really made me rethink how cell service works traditionally and how it can work when someone goes back to the drawing board and starts over. I love it. Add to that the fact that I only pay for what data I actually use (and get credited next month for what I don't use), and I love it even more. The one downfall, for me, is being locked to a Nexus 6, but not swapping phones all the time will probably work out better for my wallet and personal life anyway. ;)