My experience with Project Fi Data performance outside of the United States

*** Updated 06.20.2016 ***

My Samsung Galaxy S4 has been a great phone. The occasional drop (OK – frequent drops), or subjecting it to extreme travel conditions throughout multiple countries, heavy amounts of daily abuse, wear, and tear, have proven this to be a very reliable phone over the years, and I didn’t want to part ways with it.

I’ve been happy with the phone, but it’s finally started to break down on me, and it’s not been performing optimally for the past 10 months.

I probably would have remained faithful to Samsung and just bought a Galaxy S7, if it weren’t for Google’s new Project Fi. I looked into the project some time ago, and requested an invite. A few months later, I received a SIM card in the mail. Since the SIM is only supported on a limited number of devices at the moment, so I decided to spring for the Nexus 6P and finally take the new phone and new service for a spin.

This is a speed test that I ran just after getting setup.

As you can see, right out of the box it was doing more than 5 megabits in both directions.

Shortly after we touched down in Medellín, Colombia, I left airplane mode and was greeted with this message.

Everything automatically started operating normally, and the onslaught of new messages and notifications began coming through.

The only thing immediately noticeable was the network performance, so I ran another speed test.

You read that correctly: .25 megabits both up & down. Not exactly what I had in mind, or expected to see.

I did some research and discovered this 256 Kbps data transfer cap applies to pretty much the entire Project Fi coverage area in all 120 countries.

The fine print always gets you.

I really like the idea of a truly international SIM which can use any available network at whatever place you happen to be at the time. I was impressed that it did work in Colombia in the first place, but the speed limit is going to make tethering a bit of a challenge.

A screenshot of my chat session with Project Fi support also was not overly promising of changes in the immediate future.

Surely this will have to improve in the future, but I guess I’m stuck with using it at slow speeds, or going back to a SIM from a local provider until things with Project Fi improve a bit more, and the project has time to mature.

Edit: Due to a recent outage with UNE which lasted almost a day and a half, I decided to tether through my phone until their service was restored. The bandwidth monitors didn’t seem right though on my computer. I ran another speed test on my phone and this was the result.

OK – wow! That’s certainly not the 256 Kbps I was anticipating. I ran a few more tests to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, but sure enough data rates were averaging about 1 Mbps up and 1 Mbps down each time. So with this increase in throughput, I burned through 2 gigs by the time UNE fixed the problem the following day. I’m so happy – not because I forced myself into the next payment tier – but because it was even possible to achieve in the first place! Tethering through the N6P on Friday & Saturday was great actually! I got a lot done and made good progress with everything. I am really happy about this.

I was playing with FiSwitch ($2.99), which lets you hop between available providers, and Fi Info (free) which logs useful info about connection and signal quality; however, I wasn’t able to get and faster speeds by jumping to another network (at least not here in Medellín).

What has been your experience using Project Fi in a country other than the United States?