Getting Google Fi To Work in Rural America
Darren and I are early retirees who left corporate careers in our late 40s. We are nomadic except for three months a year when we spend time in our tiny home in the Great Plains of the United States.
We spend 40 - 120 days per year thru-hiking in the EU and about 90 days per year in the Caribbean and Central America. This blog documents our journey to nomadic living and financial independence and the adjustments we’ve made to make the lifestyle work.
In this article, we document our experience getting Google Fi to work in rural Kansas in an area poorly serviced by T-Mobile, UScellular, and AT&T.
One thing we’ve learned in our nomadic journeys is that cell phone plans are very expensive in the US. In most of the world, you can stop at an airport kiosk or newspaper stand and purchase a SIM card for less than $30 USD per month with generous data packages and cell phone minutes for calls.
When we set up our home base between travels in rural Kansas, we also discovered that cell phone coverage by major carriers is lacking. Cell phone coverage maps in rural areas often look more like spiderwebs than solid colors on a map.
We began looking for a solution that included the following:
The ability to utilize our compatible-with-Google Fi dual-SIM iPhone XR.
Coverage in rural Kansas and other rural areas we travel to in the Great Plains.
The ability to access data at an affordable cost without purchasing another phone plan.
Lower cost than our existing AT&T plan for services within and outside of the US.
A solution did not come out of the box from a big mobile phone carrier, so we crafted our own. In this article, we outline the plan we came up with.
Note: If you don’t feel comfortable cobbling together your own plan, we highly recommend visiting BestBuy near a major university, military base, or an agricultural area, as their staff has experience with helping nomadic people. Migrant workers, military personnel, and post-docs have similar needs regarding cell phone and data coverage in rural areas.
What is Google Fi?
Google Fi is a mobile virtual network operator, meaning it does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides and sells services to its subscribers. Through relationships with T-Moble and UScellular, it provides telephone calls, SMS, and mobile broadband using Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Google Fi is only available for US residents and only to US residents who use the service at least once every three months from the US.
Why Google Fi and not a Big Carrier?
When we purchased our tiny home in the high plains of Kansas, we had AT&T mobile phones. While we had consistent coverage with AT&T, we had only one or two bars worth of LTE coverage. For six or more months of the year, we were not using our AT&T phones, as we were overseas and using SIM cards procured from the country we were staying in. In a nutshell, we were overpaying for coverage with an AT&T plan better suited for use in urban and suburban areas with 4G or 5G coverage and with year-long coverage in the US.
We discovered that we wanted to have a functioning US number so that people could contact us for emergencies or two-factor authentication. We also wanted to have a functioning phone between the time we landed in another country and got a SIM card or eSIM. In larger countries like Spain, SIM kiosks are easy to find. However, in smaller countries, eSIMs are not yet available, and stores that sell physical SIM cards may not be located near airport facilities, but rather where the general population centers are, like in the heart of a larger city. Finally, we wanted cell phone service in rural areas, for navigation purposes and to be able to contact someone in case of emergency.
Why Don’t We Use T-Mobile?
In the nomadic community, many use T-Mobile. T-Mobile works quite well in urban areas, and in all the countries we have visited and plan to visit within the next few years. Unfortunately, there is no T-Mobile coverage in the rural area of Kansas, where we live for three to six months per year. So, T-Mobile was not going to be an option. We also considered UScellular. However, the small town where we live doesn’t currently have UScellular coverage (a cell tower was taken down in the fall of 2022 and we don’t yet have an update on when a new tower will go up). Without T-Mobile or UScellular, most of the low-cost cell phone plans were not available to us.
Since we have fiber internet at home and a small, local cell phone network provider that sells low-cost mobile hotspots and plans, we concluded that we could use our existing WiFi at home and procure one of these hotspots for coverage while we are out and about in rural areas.
How Much Does Google Fi Cost in a Rural Area?
There are currently three plans available on Google Fi. With our usage (usually less than 4GB per month) we went with the Flexible plan. For two users, the cost is $35 per month and $10 per GB of data.
In our experience, the monthly bill for this service has been around $45 total for the two of us.
How Much Does It Cost for a Hotspot in a Rural Area?
To enable WiFi outside of your home while traveling in a rural area, the lowest cost and most reliable option will be to purchase a mobile hotspot and a data plan.
In our area, our small, local mobile data network provider is Nex-Tech Wireless. I stopped into their store and purchased an unlocked Franklin R717 mobile hotspot for $170 and a 22GB per month data plan for $25 per month.
With the mobile hotspot and data plan, we learned we could connect up to 15 devices. As long as we charge our mobile hotspot every night and remember to take it with us, we now have ample data for our needs, and at a lower cost than Google Fi.
How To Test Google Fi in a Rural Area
A few towns near our tiny Kansas home do have some T-Mobile coverage. If you are in a situation where your semi-nomadic home base is in area with marginal T-Mobile coverage, here are our tips/tricks for finding out if you have adequate coverage before abandoning your current carrier for Google Fi:
Confirm that you have a “designed for” or “Google Fi compatible” phone here.
Order a Google Fi SIM Card Kit for under $10 (affiliate link to right).
Activate Google Fi utilizing their website. If Google Fi does not accept your rural address in the sign-up stage, then that is a good indicator that you will have issues using Google Fi with T-Mobile. To work around this hurdle, enter an address where you are getting mail as a nomad. For us, our Escapees mailing address in South Dakota worked just fine.
Walk or drive around with the activated SIM card in your phone and visit places where you need data in your neighborhood, town, or farm.
If you are happy with your coverage, congratulations! If not, consider purchasing a hotspot with a data plan from a local provider to supplement your data network coverage.
Why Use a Physical SIM for Google Fi?
We use a physical SIM instead of an eSIM for Google Fi because we want to keep the eSIM open for data plans through Orange, Vodafone, or Movistar.
When our iPhone XRs give out, we will purchase another dual SIM phone and transition Google Fi to eSIM.
Our Experience So Far
We’ve been using our Google Fi service at home (on fiber internet) and in some pretty remote areas (our farm) and have been pleased with our coverage at home on WiFi and on the road with the Nex-Tech hotspot.
We’ve been able to get rid of our expensive AT&T plan ($142 per month for two lines total) and transition to a more flexible and economical plan ($70 per month for two lines total) for our semi-nomadic life.
We hope this article helps you solve any issues you face with WiFi and cell service in a rural area!
