hi and welcome back to Mingis on Tech I'm Ken Mingis executive editor at
computer world I'm here today with Android blogger junior fel we're to be
talking about Google Phi what's coming this year and what's new stick around
so jr. thanks for being here I appreciate it from your undisclosed
location somewhere in the Midwest where somewhere knows not even me know exactly
well it's good you got to keep it that way
what caught my eye was there were a couple of announcements just in the wake
of CES in the last few days from Google about Google Phi which as I know you
know used to be called Project Phi and I guess what they're doing is rolling out
some rich communication services and a little bit better or 4G international
coverage and so I thought it'd be a great time to talk to you for a couple
of minutes a few minutes about basically what is Google Phi what what do we think
Google's trying to do here you know how does it work and why might I even with
an iPhone be interested in finding out a little bit more so so what is Google Phi
well so technically it's something called an MVNO which is a fancy acronym
for a mobile virtual network operator and all that means is that you know AT&T
has its own wires its own network Verizon has its own network Google Phi
is not its own individual network it's just a carrier is kind of like we see
like mid mobile or any of these other ones they're the same deal so they're
piggybacking off of the existing infrastructure that Verizon AT&T
t-mobile and Sprint the big players have and using it to give you a different
kind of service and and Phi is pretty different I mean what it does is it uses
more than one so it actually hops you between t-mobile Sprint and US Cellular
in the United States and wherever you are it just automatically seeks out the
best signal on any of those and you don't even know I mean you could be
driving from state to state and you might hop from t-mobile to sprint and
then sprint to US Cellular and back your phone just always works I mean as long
as one of those networks is you know providing decent coverage wherever you
are and it just keeps you connected it also
brings in Wi-Fi in an unusual way it connects you to public Wi-Fi networks
that are verified to have high-speed decent reliable connections wherever you
are so if you go into like say a mall or a Starbucks or somewhere like that that
has an open Wi-Fi network five will connect you to
that it'll turn on a VPN a virtual private network which just means it adds
an extra layer of encryption and privacy so that no one can snoop on what you're
doing and it uses that instead of mobile data so it saves you from having to
churn through mobile data what you pay for whenever it can it's a pretty
unusual setup and for the right kind of user it can it can add some value to the
equation and save some money too well you know I was looking at the FAQ you
did I think back in December and it's interesting because you know you think
of this is like you know it goo --gel doesn't have its own network it's as you
say piggybacking so it's almost like a reseller you know it's it's depending on
the infrastructure that's already out there
and I was trying to figure out you know why would Google want to do this and I'm
assuming it's because they're trying to get their fingers into as many parts of
the the mobile ecosystem as they can from devices to software to now network
and so you know I guess the idea here is that if you want to get some sort of
more pure Google experience or some way of saving some money from by moving off
a traditional carrier if this is another option is is is is price or coverage
what what would be sort of one of the defining one or two defining things that
would perhaps pull customers away from a traditional carrier I think I think
price and coverage are big ones as far as Google's motivation and you know it's
anyone's guess but I you know as far as I can see I think you kind of hit the
nail on the head I mean Google is always looking to do anything it can to
encourage people to use Google services more often and you know let's face it
most people hate their mobile carrier it's always you always feel like you're
getting ripped off there all these sneaky fees that are getting tacked on
and it's usually just a kind of unpleasant experience so if Google can
find a way to make that easier and give you a way to stay online more often
there by using more Google services it's only gonna help and you know with five
specifically one of the benefits is that it makes it really easy to use your data
in any way you want so you can set up your device to be a hotspot there's no
extra fee for that and you could get your laptop online you can even order a
data only SIM like an extra little SIM card that you could put into an old
phone or a tablet or a lap that has a SIM card slot and have that
online without paying an extra fee which almost no other carrier does usually
there's like a monthly surcharge just for that privilege but yeah I mean I
think for most people it comes down to money so Phi at its core charges you
twenty bucks a month which is like for the base service you know everybody pays
the twenty bucks a month okay right right that's just less you make calls
get texts just the basic service and then on top of that you pay $10 per
every gigabyte you use in any given month and it's broken down I think to
like the third decimal so you really only pay for what you use and and that's
where five works best for people who use like a small to moderate amount of data
you know if you're burning through 30 gigabytes of mobile data in a month it's
probably not going to economically add up for you but if you use you know a few
gigabytes per month it can end up saving quite a bit I mean you could have a
phone bill that's easily like 30 bucks a month for a single person and then it
has some other little things in there some little asterisks so like it tops
out at 6 gigabytes if you use more than six gigabytes in any month you won't pay
any more you can use seven eight-nine all the way up to 15 at 15 gigabytes
it'll start slowing down your data and if you want to go back to normal data
speeds you have to start paying again but again for most people you're not
gonna go over that if I works pretty hard to help you from doing that with
the whole Wi-Fi use thing I mean if you're in office buildings if you're in
restaurants public facilities there are a lot of places you can connect to Wi-Fi
nowadays and Phi does that for you so you really end up using not a whole lot
of mobile data and then it just it doesn't tack on any extra fees like we
were talking about the hotspot thing if you travel internationally you just pay
that same $10 per gigabyte rate so you are paying quite literally just that $20
per month plus 10 per gigabyte and then a really small number of just the the
mandated government surcharges and fees which which don't add up much to it I
mean I have a group plan a family plan nowadays when I was just doing it
individually there were months where I had 30 some-odd dollar a month bills
which is pretty unheard of for you know my cell phone bill you know Wow well I
would love to get back to $30 a month that's a me
yes interesting you know we were talking earlier because obviously one of the
things that that we would care about would being like you know enterprise
users business users who were traveling going overseas and it's seamless you
don't have to add on any special package you know we were talking I was in Spain
this summer to get the same kind of coverage that I have in the US in Spain
and ik you know ping AT&T and add 10 bucks a day more and you know those fees
do start to add up although they're not as bad as they used to be but if you're
on Google 5 basically if you're in the US and you travel somewhere you don't
have to do anything extra right yeah it just works and there are some
limitations but it's a pretty substantial list of countries I anywhere
where most people are gonna be going you know all the I'd say frequent
destination countries I think there's a hundred some-odd that they have covered
an hour are in the list and so yeah you just basically you're texting works at
no extra fee and any data you use mobile data you use you just pay that same $10
per gigabyte rate you do have to pay a little more for voice calls it's still
and it's it's relatively reasonable but that that fee does go up a little but
you can make calls using your number over Wi-Fi or over mobile data basically
as long as you data which is I think what most people are using overseas
you're gonna pay the same rate and on an enterprise business level to either the
VPN thing is a pretty valuable added bit of protection we mentioned a minute ago
how when it's connect when Phi is connecting you to a public Wi-Fi network
it'll automatically give you a VPN but just recently late last year fall/winter
last year they also rolled out the ability to have that just always on so
you can go into the fire on your phone slip a setting and it will just have an
always-on VPN which means your everything you send and receive on your
phone is encrypted nobody can see it snoop on it typically you'd have to have
if your company doesn't already provide that you'd have to seek out a third
party service to do it those can be really dicey to find one that's that's
good and reliable they certainly charge you a monthly fee
for that and you just never quite know what you're getting evaluating a VPN is
a really tricky thing to do so getting one built in no extra charge from Google
itself is a nice bit of added assurance for anybody who's you know looking to be
privacy minded and and has maybe some sensitive or company oriented data that
you want to make sure no one else is seeing as you're sending yeah well
especially if you're gonna be if the system is sort of automatically moving
you from one of the carriers to a public Wi-Fi obviously that's one of the most
vulnerable places you can be if you're you know moving data back and forth over
a public Wi-Fi that does not have some sort of encryption or VPN or security so
I can understand why you know Google would want to build that in and make it
part of the you know the whole package question for you is I mean obviously
this is something that I presume works with Google's phones the pixel phones
probably works very well with Android phones how does it work you know with an
iPhone if I if I really wanted to take a look at this and consider jumping from
18 team my current carrier to Google Phi is that doable am I gonna miss out on
something because I've got an iPhone or you know how does that how does that
work yeah well you certainly could but you will miss out on a lot of the kind
of distinctive five features and the same is true for some Android phones too
believe it or not it works perfectly across the board with the pixel phones
and with some of the older Nexus phones and then Google has a handful of other
Android devices that have basically been built with Phi in mind because it not
all phones can handle that network switching is this an unusual kind of
thing and they have to have certain technology to do it so if you don't get
kind of one of these pre-approved Phi compatible phones whether it's a random
Android phone or an iPhone you can still use Phi but you'll basically just be
using t-mobile all the time in the United States you won't be switching you
won't get that automatic Wi-Fi connectivity and so you won't get that
always on VPN function either it'll just kind of work as an alternate t-mobile
carrier you will get the same pricing that $10 per gigabyte rate and the $20
flat fee thing and you will get the free international roaming or fee free
international roaming I should say but yeah you won't get the whole network
switching and all that and the funny thing is that's actually been something
you could do forever Google just started promoting it and and really making a big
deal about it and supporting it last year when they change the name from
project buy to Google five but that's always something you've been able to do
I've taken a Phi SIM and put it in any number of phones over the years and
always work but yeah now Google does officially say that's an option and and
encourage people to do that I wonder you know if it would you know and I I've
noticed the the way the the billing is done that basically you don't have to
sign a contract to do this you can sort of sign up you kind of prepay for the
month ahead right and then you're not locked in so you could try it out if you
wanted to find out you know again if I'm on an iPhone and I'm basically using
t-mobile in the States here I'd need to see if the coverage that I want or need
in the area that I'm in you know if t-mobile's there and that you know the
speeds and the connectivity that I expect is gonna work but at least you're
not committed to something beyond one month so you could try it out find out
if it works and then you know either stick with it or cut your losses yeah
exactly there's no contract and you're just paying one month ahead and then the
way it works is you prepay for the month and then any like so you would say I
want to have one gigabyte of mobile data and then if you don't use that you get
that credit back the next month but but still you're not committed you could
easily give it a whirl and you know you're out 30 40 bucks at most if it
doesn't work out but yeah when people are evaluating it what I always suggest
is looking at the networks because that's really the question is just what
the network coverage is gonna be for you so if you're on an iPhone or a
non-official five phone then yeah you're looking at t-mobile and what the
coverage is like where you are where you travel where you work and if you are
using a phone that has the full five support then you know you can broaden
that a little bit and say in all the places where maybe you live in Chicago
but travel to New York City every few weeks for work so you look at the places
you tend to be and between sprint and and t-mobile and then also US Cellular
there's at least one of those have pretty good coverage in everywhere
you're gonna be and if so then you know it'll probably work out for you as long
as you just kind of have to do the math and see how much data you tend to use
each month and what that's gonna cost you on phy compared to what you're
paying now but for people who use low data it can work out pretty nicely time
to break out the the green eyeshade and a calculator I guess yeah so it's in the
states it's t-mobile US Cellular and what's the third carrier do you remember
t-mobile Sprint and um right now yeah have we heard anything at all yet and
I'm gonna presume the answer's no but I'm gonna ask
anyway cuz I don't know anything about 5g coverage down the road is that that's
gonna depend on the underlying carriers I would presume before anything like
Google five would see something like that right I think it'll all come down
to the carriers and then of course device specific support I mean it will
have to wait till there are enough phones that really supported and enough
coverage widely that it that it's kind of relevant and matters I I would
imagine it's just a matter of time till five does support it as the carriers and
phones do but yet nothing I don't think anything officially has been said on
that front right well and as you say that's gonna depend on the hardware and
the networks too so maybe we'll find a little bit more with with Mobile World
Congress coming up in a month month and a half I'm maybe we'll hear more I'm
sure we'll hear more about 5g I don't know whether we anymore about Google Phi
and 5g okay any other anything any other areas of Google Phi that I that I
haven't hit on that we should mention before I let you go well there are a
couple of neat little random perks nothing is gonna convince you to use it
but just when you're there a little sorry you never know yeah you never do
this was something I wrote a story on computer WorldCom just a month or two
ago about this little handy hidden features that that are there little
extra bonuses so one is effective number blocking you can usually do this on
Android at least you can do it in the phone app you can block a number and but
what happens there is if somebody calls you they go straight to your voicemail
and it doesn't ring your phone you'll still get the message they still think
they're reaching you and so you don't quite cut the cord if you've got
somebody who's really bothering you for whatever reason a telemarketer former
stall trust of some sort well predator you don't want to hear from wait a
minute now you always want the editor to get through but go ahead yeah so you can
block your number directly in Phi and what happens then is the person calling
will just hear a message that sounds like you know one of those old operator
messages that this number has been disconnected or is no longer in service
so you pretty much just shut the door to them I mean of course they get still
message on Facebook or on you know slack or whatever else they have access to but
as far as your cell number they won't any text won't reach you and
if they try to call you it'll just seem like that's no longer your number which
is a nice little option to have if the need ever comes up you know and then the
other one which is something that I actually use is a built in call
forwarding feature so you could tell anytime someone calls my my number my
main cell phone number I want it to ring not only my cell phone but also the
internet-based you know landline that's in my home office or maybe my my office
line at work or whatever the case is and then your phone will quite literally
just ring on both those places and you can pick it up either way you know
sometimes if I'm sitting here I've got a phone internet-based lying on my desk
and it's just easier more convenient more comfortable to talk on that you
know regular old landline style phone than it is on a cell phone
it also doesn't run down your battery you know it doesn't tie up your phone if
you want to do other things on your phone at the same time it's just a neat
little feature to have but where if you're gonna be traveling anywhere else
you could have your calls forward to it you know whatever number you want and a
nice little option to have there I think those are I would say again like little
things I think that the no fees and the no contracts are probably what'll impact
people more often but you never know when you're gonna need to block a number
or when you want it to your number to ring in an additional place exactly when
you're trying to avoid that editor who's who's yelling at you for something like
something in the red line or whatever that's the way to do it okay that that's
really helpful though cuz I like I say I you know I've seen Google I've seen your
pieces obviously about project file in Google file this news came out yesterday
or you know in the last few days after CES about some additions to Google Phi
and I thought it'd be a good chance given a lot of attention right now on
networks and 5g and what's going on just to get a better sense for what what
Google Phi is what it does and how it works all of which I think I understand
much better now so I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me
yeah always a pleasure thanks for having me alright we'll do it again sometime
soon definitely thanks a lot for now on Google Phi and the future that's a wrap