Nexus 5x, Nexus 6P, Nexus 10, Nexus 9, Nexus 7, Nexus 6, Nexus 5, Nexus 4 to get Wi-Fi Assistant Feature (Photo : YouTube/ Google Nexus)
Google is now helping its users boost their data speeds with Project Fi whenever they travel abroad but the feature is currently limited to users in the United States for now.
Project Fi allows users to switch between data and Wi-Fi signals automatically depending on which would be more beneficial for the user. The switch is done seamlessly without having to drop VoIP calls and video streaming.
The search engine giant announced that Project Fi will now boost their speeds for users in the US that will be traveling abroad without having to pay for additional charges, CNET has learned. Google's Project Fi works with T-Mobile, Sprint and other cellular networks in the US.
Google already has their Google Fiber which is slowly expanding to more states and regions as users want to experience blazingly fast Internet speeds in their homes and businesses. They also have Project Loon which is geared to bring Wi-Fi signals in hard to reach rural areas, kind of like what Facebook is doing with their Internet.org initiative.
Users from the US will now get up to 20x more speed from Project Fi at the same price of $10 per 1GB of data, Ars Technica reported. Google has also said that the speeds will not be capped as some people might think.
Still, the speed would largely depend on the available cell sites near the user. It could shift from LTE to just 3G networks and even 2G in worse case scenarios. One of the many complaints for the current users is that the speeds of Project Fi are sometimes too slow to even be beneficial.
Google said that different countries will obviously have different download and upload speeds. It is not guaranteed that Project Fi will always provide fast LTE download speeds but the new feature would work to bring the best quality Internet connection available for US users abroad.
The Project Fi service is only available for select Android smartphones from Google's Nexus line. Google is even running a promo for US users who want to buy a Nexus 6P for only $150 if they bundle it with their Project Fi service.
