Hiding products behind an invite system is a great way to piss a lot of potential customers off, and few companies enjoy doing this as much as Google. The company decided to give us a little reminder of that fact when it launched Project Fi, a wireless network that’s supposed to disrupt the wireless industry in much the same way that Google Fiber disrupted the cable industry. As interesting as the service sounded, you needed a compatible smartphone and an invite before signing up for it. Fortunately, the company announced on Monday that the invite system is being dropped, and that anyone who has a compatible smartphone can now sign up for the service.
Project Fi, Google’s previously invite-only prepaid wireless service that takes advantage of both T-Mobile and Sprint networks, is now open to the public. Of course, you’ll still need a supported phone, but this means you will no longer need to request an invite to sign-up. Yay! As a recap on Project Fi, this is Google’s take on wireless service, where they ask you to only pay for what you have used. You start off by paying $20 for unlimited talk and text, then add 1GB per $10 depending on how much data you think you will use in a month. The cool thing here is that Google only charges you for the data you use, so if you were to pay for 3GB ($30) of data for this month and only use 1.5GB, they’ll take the $15 you didn’t spend and apply it to your next month of service. Neat, right? For Fi’s network, Google is using both T-Mobile and Sprint’s networks, but they also attempt to attach you to as many public WiFi hotspots as they can. This allows you to (in theory) always have a rock-solid connection no matter where you are. You can text and place calls over WiFi, seamlessly transition from WiFi to network, etc. The service also comes with a really slick app and solid support from within.
