Back in August 2016, T-Mobile announced its unlimited ONE plan, starting a trend that caused all major U.S. carriers to jump on the unlimited bandwagon. However, all of these plans have a catch, where data speeds are extremely limited after a certain amount of usage. In other words, they're not exactly unlimited.
Google today announced its own take on an unlimited plan for Project Fi, calling it Bill Protection.
The way that Project Fi typically works is that you pay for what you use at $10 per gigabyte. For example, if you pay $20 for 2GB and only use 1.5GB, you'll get $5 back. With Bill Protection, you won't get charged for anything beyond 6GB, or $60. All customers are included in this, as it's not a separate plan. You just have to use a certain amount of data to get put in the unlimited bracket.
But as is the case with all of the other carriers, there is a catch. Once you've reached 15GB, you'll get throttled down to 256kbps, which is really slow compared to average 4G LTE speeds of around 40Mbps. The good news is that you'll still have the option of paying for additional data beyond 15GB, at the regular price of $10 per gigabyte.
There are some clear benefits to the Project Fi take on an 'unlimited' plan. For one thing, Google isn't throttling video or limiting mobile hotspot usage, like T-Mobile does for its main ONE plan. The option to continue using full-speed data for a price is helpful as well.
Bill Protection begins rolling out today to all Project Fi customers.
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