Google’s Project Fi has been the anti-establishment carrier option, but it didn’t offer much in the way of an unlimited plan. That’s about to change with a new Bill Protection that lets you up your data usage to unlimited territory.
Calling Project Fi’s new Bill Protection an “unlimited plan” is not a stretch, but it’s not quite accurate either. There is a limit, and it’s lower than what the big four carriers offer, but it is cheaper with the option to increase it.
Let’s break it down. A normal single user plan on Project Fi runs $20 for the base call and text service, and then the rest of the amount depends on how much data you use. The Protection Plan caps data charges to $60 (bringing the total price of the plan to $80) and lets you use up to 15GB of data without worrying about slowdowns. Basically, you are charged for the first 6GB of data ($10 a gig), after which you have 9GB of free data until you hit the soft cap of 15GB.
Once you hit the 15GB threshold, speeds will dip to a blazing 256kbps according to Google. But here’s where Google is setting itself apart from the other carriers. You can pay an additional $10 for any gigabyte of data you use over the capped bill in case you happen to go over, which Google says only 1-percent of Project Fi customers do.
After all that, you are still only charged for the amount of data you use. If on a particular month you stick to Wi-Fi networks and use only 1.4GB, your bill will come out to $34 ($20 for the base plan and $14 for the data usage).
Project Fi was always a dark horse option that never really offered the full-featured services other carriers do, but slowly and surely it has become a very enticing option.
