From “Hi” to Fi to “Goodbye” to invites: 7 things we’ve learned about Project Fi

Roughly 10 months ago we introduced Project Fi - a program to explore new ideas in wireless connectivity. Similar to our Nexus hardware program, Project Fi works in partnership with leading carriers and hardware makers to push the boundaries of what's possible. By designing across hardware, software, and connectivity, we’re able to explore new ways for people to connect and communicate.

With Project Fi, we deliver fast wireless service with the flexibility to use it where you want (even internationally) and a monthly bill that’s simple and easy to understand. Over the past 10 months, we’ve learned a lot about how people use Project Fi and wanted to share a few of these insights with you!

1) Project Fi customers love to travel

With Project Fi, being away from home doesn’t mean that you have to be away from your cellular data. Since launch, more than 15% of our customers have used Project Fi abroad. From Mexico to Montenegro, customers have visited 110 of our 120+ supported countries all while paying the same rate for data that they would in the U.S.

2) There’s lots of high quality public Wi-Fi

We believe that using Wi-Fi should be seamless which is why we created Wi-Fi Assistant - a tool that automatically connects to high-quality hotspots and helps secure your connection. Over 50% of Project Fi customers are connecting to public hotspots using Wi-Fi Assistant on a weekly basis.

3) People like data on their data

When it comes to data, people like to be in the know - especially when they get a refund for what they don’t use. So, we built tools into our app to help customers understand and track their usage throughout the month. Roughly 90% of people who visit the Project Fi app are coming to check out how much data they’ve used. How much data are they using? An average of 1.6 GB data per month.

4) Connectivity isn’t just for phones

We launched data-only SIMs in December to help Project Fi subscribers connect to data from devices other than their phones with no additional fees or restrictions. Since then, we’ve seen SIMs used everywhere from tablets to cars. While we’re just starting to experiment here, one thing is already clear: people want access to data on more devices.

5) Project Fi customers like getting support from a real person

We never want something to go wrong, but when it does, it should be easy to get in touch to fix the problem quickly. While Project Fi has 24/7 customer support through phone, chat, and email, we’ve found that phone calls are still the most popular way that customers like to get in touch with us. When Project Fi customers call in, they are speaking to a real live person in 20 seconds or less 95% of the time.

6) Project Fi customers are creative

Three creations from our Fi customers

To spread some holiday cheer last December, we sent out building blocks to Project Fi customers to help them organize their phones and cables. As you can see from the photos above, customers built creations ranging from the useful to the extravagant.

7) We all want to skip the line

We launched Project Fi as an invitation-only Early Access program to make sure we could deliver the best quality of service to our first customers. Today, we’re excited to be exiting our invitation-only mode and opening up Project Fi so that people across the U.S. can now sign up for service without having to wait in-line for an invite.

We’d like to say ‘thank you’ to all our Project Fi customers for providing insights and feedback over the past 10 months. While Project Fi is still in its early stages, we’re excited to welcome our next wave of customers and look forward to growing and improving together.

P.S. To help make saying “Hi” to Project Fi a little easier, we’ll be offering the Nexus 5X starting at $199 for the next month when you buy and activate through Project Fi.

Posted by Simon Arscott, Product Manager, Project Fi