Thoughts on Google's Project Fi

Google's recent release of Project Fi once again proves Google's tenacity to be first to market in a specific tech space and drive (some would say force...) the industry to progress with them. Although they will never publicly state this approach to business it is the core of how they operate. This strategy time and time again proves massive profits up front, following a quiet ramp down of service and concept maturity once the industry has adjusted.

SIM Card Technology & Offering

Project Fi is a bold move towards a world of a carrier-less phone plan and an infrastructure that meets many individual needs. The flat fee (and it is cheap!) favors a standard pay-per-gigabyte model but also poses an incentive for customers who do not go over their threshold through a credit reward. Your phone will almost always have a signal due to service agreements with T-Mobile & Sprint, as the phone's SIM card will choose the strongest signal while also weighing public WiFi as an option. Think of Google's offering as a humongous mesh network and your phone bounces off different towers and routers as you move. Unfortunately, this special SIM card is only in Google's Nexus 6 devices (and as far we know, designed or manufactured by Google), but one can predict only more Google phones adopting this capability moving forward. Now that I've gushed about a few reasons why Project Fi would be the obvious over your current carrier today, I bring you my red flags...

Stud or Dud?

Google selling hardware is somewhat a new phenomenon, but google selling the data and cell service to their hardware is entering a new realm of possibilities. And with possibility, come major challenges...here are my top concerns:

1. Security - If a phone is constantly connecting to different cell towers or public WiFi networks, what does this mean for privacy? Sure the connection is passing through some encrypted tunnel but public WiFi immediately flags issues for my own personal reasons. I'm not saying my privacy agreement with Verizon is fabulous today, but mixing in public WiFi would not help me sleep at night.

2. Reliability - Let's be honest, Sprint and T-Mobile are not prime service players because their cell service is spotty and lack a constant 4G/LTE connection. Signal strength in the city is fair, but Project Fi would rely on public routers in dense areas and cell towers in rural territory. I can't say I'm quite ready to rely on a combination of two spotty service providers for my phone...

3. Device Battery - Perhaps I am missing some technological understanding, but my personal experience and attentiveness to mobile innovation suggest to turn on/off your cell chip or WiFi chip to conserve your smartphone battery. Although the Nexus 6 battery is an improvement  from older models (3220 mAh is a lot of juice), I'm not sure any smart phone battery can pack enough heat to support constant searching, identification, and switching of hundreds of networks in a given day.

Bonus: I can only for see a long and dreadful lawsuit coming from service monopolies like Verizon and Comcast, exposing every loophole imaginable and .muddying the waters for Google and partners to push forward.

Conclusion

With all that being said, Project Fi is a major step in the right direction. Security concerns aside, the model is innovative and the benefit to cost ratio is off the charts. One can hope Fi does not fizzle out like other Google ventures. If it fails, it needs to fail successfully by forcing pressure on carriers to finally change their horrific 'locked-in' contract plans. It has massive business opportunity as well, possibly offering an enormous cost reduction for employee mobile devices depending on industry.

**UPDATE <<4/25/2015>>**

Google's patent for Project Fi's architecture and essential inner workings has recently surfaced and can be found here. This patent was filed in October 2011, inferring Google's plan to enter the telecommunications space as a service provider (in some form) has been a long time coming.