(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar)
Google Fi is 10 years old this month, and to celebrate the company has introduced its cheapest unlimited plan yet plus improvements to all existing unlimited plans.
A new Unlimited Essentials plan costs $35 a month for one line with unlimited calls, texts, and data and 30GB of high-speed data available to use in the US. Google Fi is also improving its other packages to help distinguish them from this new Essentials plan.
The Simply Unlimited plan has been renamed Unlimited Standard and it now offers 50GB of high-speed data compared to the previous 35GB, while tethering data has jumped from 5GB to 25GB. It costs $50 a month for one line.
Unlimited Plus is now called Unlimited Premium, and doubles the high-speed data from 50GB to 100GB. The bad news here is that tethering is no longer limitless on this plan, and customers will be restricted to 50GB per month. That’s $65 a month per line.
Those on the Standard and Premium packages get further benefits, such as coverage in Canada and Mexico for no further fees, and connectivity options for some smartwatches. Those on Unlimited Premium also get 100GB of Google One Cloud storage and a free trial of YouTube Premium for six months alongside other benefits.
Prices with the carrier reduce per line if you add more to the same package. For example, Unlimited Essentials drops to $30 per line if you have two paired together.
Another new benefit is you can add a further device onto your plan with the use of an eSIM. The company has allowed you to have a secondary device with a physical SIM card in the past, but this is the first time you can use an eSIM for a tablet or laptop.
If you use your iPhone with Google Fi, you’ll also now get access to international 5G for the first time. Those on Flexible or Premium plans with Google Fi will now also get 5G data in 92 countries, although the company has yet to reveal which new countries have been added.
Google Fi was recently voted best mobile carrier in PCMag's Readers' Choice Awards, beating rivals like Mint Mobile, Consumer Cellular, and the big three of T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T. Mint Mobile gave Google Fi some steady competition, but it couldn't beat Fi's overall satisfaction rating. Google Fi was also tops when it came to phone choices and data network reliability. The two tie for dropped call minimization and data network speed.