Back to Google Fi (Premium)

After two years with Mint Mobile, I’ve moved my phone number back to Google Fi. I’ll miss hearing from Mint owner Ryan Reynolds, and the lower overall cost. But there’s no doubt that Fi is the better overall service, at least for my needs.

To understand why, let’s start at the beginning: in 2007, I switched from Verizon and my then long-running 781 area code phone number to AT&T, when I received the 617 area code number that I’m still using. At that time, Verizon had a vastly superior network, which was why I was using it, but Apple released the iPhone as an AT&T exclusive and that was that. My phone was futuristic, but my wireless network was, for a time, from the past.

There was a nice side-benefit to using AT&T, too. AT&T was based on GSM wireless technology, unlike Verizon, which was CDMA-based, and that meant I could—or, had to—use a removable SIM card (like most of the rest of the planet). And that meant that I could, theoretically at first and literally later on, use my phones internationally using local SIM cards. We had just started our European-based home swaps, so this was an interesting coincidence. (Verizon eventually added support for SIM cards, of course.)

I was on AT&T for the entire duration of the Windows Phone era—roughly 2010 to 2015—and those handsets were mostly GSM-based, which made testing them easier as you could move SIMs around effortlessly. And concurrently to this, Android happened. I owned several Android handsets in the early years and later would switch between late-model Windows phones, iPhones, and Android phones. And that’s where I was at when we started this website in 2015.

Then Google launched what was then called Project Fi in April 2015. It was originally invite-only and was designed to work only with the terrible (Motorola-based) Nexus 6. But I was immediately interested, regardless, since the promise was so compelling: Fi would always try to use the best available network at any given time, whether it was CDMA-, GSM-, or Wi-Fi-based. When you were connected via Wi-Fi, calls and text messages would use that more reliable network instead, and when you were out in the world, the phone would seamlessly switch between the Sprint (CDMA) and T-Mobile (GSM) cellular networks. As innovatively, Fi offered transparent, pay-as-you-go pricing with no contracts: $20 per month got you unlimited talk, text, Wi-Fi tethering, and international coverage in 120+ countries, and each GB of data used was another $10; you also got credit for unused data up to the next GB.

When Google launched the much improved and Fi-compatible Nexus 6P and 5X in late 2015, I was ready to roll, and I tested the Nexus 6P with Project Fi as a secondary carrier. I fell in love with both: the Nexus 6P was the best handset of that time and Project Fi transformed cellular wireless, especially internationally after an important upgrade to the service. By mid-2016, I was sold on using Fi while traveling abroad as the savings and capabilities were unbelievable. And one year later, I finally made the switch, porting my main 617 number off of AT&T after 10 years and onto Google Fi.

That said, I’m an inveterate tinkerer and I like to save money. And soon after making the Fi switch, I started testing low-cost mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), including a little startup then called Mint SIM that was piggybacking on top of T-Mobile. The appeal was obvious—you can save a lot of money using these lower-cost options—but I stuck with Google Fi because of its international capabilities, convenience, and, to be sure, inertia.

And then the pandemic happened.

With my Google Fi monthly bill averaging about $50, not being able to travel internationally for an indefinite period of time triggered a change: I switched to Mint Mobile, opting for a 12 GB plan that ran $300 for one year (paid in advance), which averaged out to $25 per month, half my average Fi bill. This plan changed to 15 GB over time, though I never came close to using that much data and could have saved even more with a lower-end plan.

A year later, a few things had changed yet again: international travel was going to ramp up again thanks to the availability of vaccines. But I re-upped for another year of Mint Mobile, figuring I could just get a new Google Fi account and use it only when I did travel internationally, as I’d done in the past. And that did sort of work, though I surprised myself by how much international travel we did in the following year: by March 2022, a year later, we had spent 7 weeks outside of the United States (6 in Mexico and one in Paris). Kind of a lock-down overreaction, I guess.

By this time, of course, dual-SIMs were well-established and, better still, all my phones also supported eSIMs, which made using Mint Mobile and Google Fi together semi-seamless on these international trips. (And Fi lets you pause the services for months at a time when you’re not using it, so I wasn’t paying extra when we were home.) But heading into 2022, I was debating whether to re-up Mint yet again, possibly with an even less expensive plan. Or to just switch to Fi and make life easier, albeit at higher monthly costs.

There was just one problem.

Mint Mobile worked well domestically until I got my iPhone 13 Pro in late 2021. Then, I started noticing something I’d not seen before on the Pixels and other Android phones I had been using since 2016: an incredible amount of phone- and text messaging-based spam. I’m still not 100 percent sure which pieces of the puzzle prevented this from happening before I switched to the iPhone, but my belief/understanding is that Android, Pixel, and Google Fi each offer some measure of protection against this spam and that two or more of them together is even better. I do know that once all three were out of the picture, and I was using the iPhone on Mint Mobile, the problems began. And never stopped. And then escalated.

I tried to solve this problem, of course. After Googling the issue, I tried a few iOS apps that offered some relief, but not total relief. And I experimented with using Mint Mobile on the Pixel 6 Pro, where the spam problems were greatly reduced. (But not completely eradicated, actually. A few did get through.) Then there was a two-to-three week period in late March when I moved the SIM between the two phones every few days. In a two-day period with the iPhone, I received 22 spam phone calls. When I moved it to the Pixel, I saw none over three days.

This happened right as my Mint Mobile annual renewal was due, unfortunately. And adding to the stress, we had suddenly decided to buy an apartment in Mexico City in January, had gone back there in March, and would return again in April (we fly next Monday). And so I punted: I did re-up with Mint Mobile, but with the cheapest plan (4 GB) and with the shortest contract (3 months) for a total cost of $45. I was just buying time.

In researching these issues, I discovered two things: Apple builds absolutely no worthwhile anti-spam tools into iOS at all. And unlike the major carriers, Mint Mobile provides no anti-spam services at all. I wasn’t ready to leave the iPhone—I still prefer it overall—and so Mint had to go. Originally, I wanted to wait until after our April trip to Mexico City, but the spam has only gotten worse, and last week I suddenly started getting group spam texts involving dozens of other people. Many of whom, naturally but annoyingly are actually replying to the spam texts. It’s just too much.

Not for the first time, I started investigating how I could move an existing phone number onto Fi, not as a new customer but rather as an existing customer, and one that would be replacing my existing Fi number. From what I can tell, this is not something you can do yourself. So on Friday, I started by contacting Fi customer support via web chat. And was told that they could do this for me. And then they did.

This process was not as seamless as switching from Fi; Google, to its credit, makes that as easy as is possible. But Mint Mobile does not: I had to start a second chat with Mint Mobile customer support, this time to get the account number and PIN I’d need to make the switch. It was slow and ponderous, and I think we’ve all experienced the flowchart-based customer service scripts that these people clearly follow, and you have to just kind of grin and bear it. Also, I knew I’d have the flowchart ender when they asked me why I was leaving: Mint doesn’t have any true international data plans, which they don’t, and that was that.

Confusingly, the transfer process required me to enter what the Fi app called my “T-Mobile” account number and PIN. I told them I wasn’t on T-Mobile, but they said it was OK and would work, and … it did. Eventually: there was a 30+ minute period where my 617 phone number was hanging in some wireless carrier netherworld, and it was hard not to imagine that Mint was being obstinate as a final hour FU. But it happened eventually, and everything works fine, including my Fi data SIM, which is in the Nexus 6 Pro right now.

Were we moving to Mexico sometime soon or just splitting the next year split between here and there, I might have gone a different route and switched to a major U.S. carrier for my 617 number and then gotten a Mexico phone account as well to handle my data needs there. We’re not doing that, but I may still investigate what that looks like over time. And Fi, again, will let me go quickly and easily enough should I need to.

But for now, I will say this: It’s been 48 hours since I switched the iPhone 13 Pro from Mint to Google Fi. And I haven’t received a single spam call or text in that time. For now, at least, I’m happy I made the move.