One Step Forward, Three Steps Back (Premium)

As I wrote last Friday in Fi, eSIM, CDMX, and Me (Premium), I’ve hit a familiar wall, as I often find myself in a decision paralysis when no clear choice emerges. But I’ve evaluated more options since then. And I’m getting ready to make a change. Some change. Any change.

Here’s my current situation. I’m using Google Fi, which has cost me an average of $71 per month over five months because we’ve been traveling so much this year, mostly to Mexico. But even those months when I didn’t travel were fairly expensive at an average of over $50. And I want to spend less money on my wireless bill.

I like Fi because of its transparent, usage-based pricing and because I can use it normally when traveling internationally. But because I’ve been using an iPhone for most of 2022, I can’t take advantage of some of its best Android features, like networking switching, call and text spam protection, visual voicemail (in the iPhone’s Phone app), and 5G compatibility. And I’ve had other Fi-related issues, like connectivity problems when reconnecting after a flight.

My situation, like everyone’s, is unique. But if I were to break down this particular decision matrix, what I’m looking for, in no particular order, is:

Lower prices
Call and text spam protection
Seamless international usage
No connectivity issues
Full iPhone compatibility
No contract: I want to switch when I want to switch

And I’ve spent a lot of time researching how I might solve this problem. Too much, maybe: as noted above, I have this sense of paralysis now where nothing makes sense.

Let me give you one example of a dead-end that’s come up since I wrote that first article. A reader recommended a service called U.S. Mobile, which can cost as little as $20 and is completely compatible with the iPhone, solving two of my issues. But I ran into two other problems while researching it: while you can purchase international data for rates that are often reasonable (for example, $18 for 10 GB of data in France), the prices in Mexico, where I will be traveling the most, are not at all reasonable ($50 for 5 GB of data). Well, I was talking about getting a cheaper Mexico-based eSIM/SIM, so perhaps I could get by that. But when I researched spam protection, I found this: “We don't yet offer the ability to block unwanted callers at a network level.” One of their recommendations, which matches my own experience, is to “buy a phone from Samsung or Google that automatically identified spam callers.” Ah well. I’m on iPhone right now.

There’s more.

I could stick with Google Fi but switch from the pay-as-you-go Flexible plan I’m currently using ($20 per month for unlimited talk/text, plus $10 per GB for data) to the Simply Unlimited plan. This costs $50 per month and provides unlimited talk, text, and data (including in Canada and Mexico), though data is technically limited to 35 GB per month, a plateau I’d never hit. My unlimit...

Gain unlimited access to Premium articles.

With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper?

Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC