Just got back from Italy where I found I had rather bad/slow data in the Florence area. Was worse than some third world countries I have roamed in.

Damn I was in the market for a deal and missed this, are you getting emails from Fi? I don't seem to get anything

Just got back from London where I had 100+mbps download speeds nearly everywhere I ran a test. Was great.

I got that offer after I signed up on the Fi website for offers and news.

Vigur island Iceland, 5 bars LTE. 6 mbs down, oddly enough through a server in Wichita Kansas

Recently traveled to Ireland (rural, northwest), Madrid, and Lisbon. Had pretty decent data speeds almost everywhere. Didn't measure it, but was always able to get maps and run Google's AR walking directions.

Upon return from the trip, we switched from Google Fi to a regular T-Mobile 4-line plan. My international non-business travel needs for the next six months are lower, and it just wasn't worth paying such a high premium for Fi. One thing I have immediately noticed is that my data speeds and call quality are higher at home on T-Mo than they were on Fi, even though I'm pretty sure Fi was running over the same network (?). For a domestic unlimited plan, T-Mobile seems like the best option going, as all of the other resellers and Sprint have lots of caveats, extra fees, really low throttles, or other "gotchas". And T-Mo gave us one kinda-free-ish iPhone XR in exchange for an old Sprint iPhone 6s that I never could get them to unlock anyway.

Fi was great for the kinda-free-ish Pixel 3's in the Black Friday deal, but is too expensive for regular U.S. use even if you're reasonably diligent about finding Wifi throughout the day. Definitely a good thing to have during periods of extensive travel.

Presuming you were using a fully Fi compatible phone (and it sounds like you were), then it will be using both the Sprint and T-mobile network - apparently with a preference for Sprint.

If you're using a non-Fi phone then it'll use T-mobile only.

We had both: three Pixels plus a GSM iPhone 7. Never crossed my mind to do a side-by-side test of them.

Bit ironic that the very devices so closely associated with and designed in part for Fi are directed to run on an inferior network, likely performing worse than other devices.

That probably means you had the Google VPN on, so your location was obscured to the speed test site.

There are codes you can "dial" to force a network switch, and associated helper apps (eg Signal Spy, FiSwitch).

If you don't use a lot of data domestically, Fi is not that bad. I use about 1GB a month.. so my bill is like $30. I also have Tmobile One Plus for my family... I think on average is about $30 per line. So I kept my Fi line.. and a bunch of free data SIMs. When we travel internationally, I can put data sims on all the their iPhones. And now everyone got fast LTE internet for total of $60 max per month. The data sims are also great when friends came visit from oversea. Here is a sim.. data on me.. LOL.

Akureyri Iceland 5 bars LTE 11 down, no VPN still routes through Wichita
2 people on our plan, $51 last month. WiFi switching is pretty seamless

surprise, i tried to sign up for venmo which required SMS authentication... venmo refused my standalone googlevoice number, but also my google fi number!

i know there exists some sort of database or tag on certain numbers, because while GV works most of the time, certain 2FA authentication services rejects GV (or the message does not go through). im surprised for it to happen with the FI number.

Yeah, we use about 20-25GB per month even when we're set up for our usual home/work Wifi networks. I travel a lot domestically for work so I'm the main culprit, but my teenage daughters aren't far behind me.

Is a data-only eSIM a thing? I have Pixel 3's that now have a physical T-Mobile SIM in them. But if I wanted to, could I sign up for data-only via Fi just for my international trips? T-Mobile includes free 2G data almost everywhere in the world, but even their buy-up speeds aren't that great. I'd pay $10/gig to get LTE as long as I can turn it on and off when I want.

AIS Sim2Fly has an international roaming eSIM geared towards data roaming. 3HK does, too, and allows you to consume data usage by day non-consecutively. Both seem to have good data offerings in Asia.

Fi has a more coverage but there isn't a data only e-sim. Fi service requires a voice + sms line which does support eSIM so you could just use that. Min monthly cost is about $22 depending on taxes and fees without data use.