This might be a local issue, but has anyone notice a significant drop in coverage or performance in their area in the last few weeks? My wife and I have noticed this with our two Pixel 5 phones in the usually good Bellevue area to the east of Seattle. Same phones we’ve used for years with Google Fi, no changes in phones, cases, or locations and we’re well within our “high speed” Simply Unlimited data bucket. .
Speeds on 4G LTE or 5G are poor, between 4Mbps to 10Mbps
Frequently see a “!” character in LTE wireless bar with basically no no data throughput in areas where coverage was just fi8ne. At times with a “working” connection also see no data throughput.
*Edit 3/10/2024: Will keep CellMapper collecting more data but I don’t have a rooted Android phone to see QCI in Network Signal Guru. Google Fi is an MVNO on T-Mobile. So even if Google Fi isn’t deprioritized (QCI 6 to 7 or higher) then it’s believable that around here we’re just being deprioritized to T-Mobile customers as the Seattle area is known for being congested. If things don’t improve I will try out this free 3-month pass on T-mo-- I guess if you can’t beat them, join them.
Colorado was good and has improved offer the last two years. I stopped using the FCC app because it’s buggy and the test results are much slower than other apps.
For troubleshooting, try close to a few different towers to rule out a single tower or weak signal. Test at various times of day to check for congestion. Disable any VPN.
San Antonio is pretty bad as well. Similar issues. Same Pixel 5 with Simply Unlimited. Had no issues in Columbus, OH, Omaha, NE, nor Dallas, TX. Even driving long trips between these 3 cities I won’t have any noticeable issues. Only in San Antonio, TX do I have major cellular data issues. Google Maps mostly offline, unable to stream music, can’t even pull up Google search without it saying I’m not connected to the Internet and having the ! by the 5G.
I’ve had Google Fi for years. I lived in Southern corn Illinois and had service when no one did, Southern California for the last 6 years with no problems, but I moved to Seattle two weeks ago and my phone is useless. I actually got lost so badly (to the point my dumbass was in downtown crying) because maps wouldn’t load and I couldn’t figure out where the bus stop was to get home. It’s definitely a Seattle thing. I’m not sure what to do. As a Fi customer for like ten years, I’ve had no problems anywhere else, but having a phone that’s useless here… I have to figure out a solution.
Things got worse for me in Bay Area (I’m in MV). Coverage or quality went down 50% since I’m mostly in same places all the time. Friend who’s on my account also was asking “what’s up with G-Fi, why did the quality go down so much?”
I’m in North Seattle and Fi is basically unusable much of the time. My Pixel 7 Pro will have full 5G bars but will be speed testing under 1 mbps and constantly timing out while loading webpages. Network will also drop noticeably for a few seconds when switching cell towers. I spend a lot of time in the city parks and walking around. Definitely feels like a congestion issue and with Fi supposedly being the same priority as TMo customers I’m very surprised it’s not more of a problem for their customers.
I’m looking into trying another MVNO on a different network to compare. Previously was on AT&T and even when signal was low it would get 80+ mbps down and in general just be much more responsive.
Yes the FCC app used to be buggy/crashy but they simplified it a lot about a year ago and quality improved a lot at that point. Now the test results are basically the same as other speed test providers. For example my 5G connection right now is poor and the FCC test app results are about the same as Google’s own built in speed test: https://imgur.com/a/NGyJast
I only turn to the FCC app once I notice in another app that my connection is poor or disconnecting. Ironically that used to be a great way to crash the FCC app as it wasn’t very resilient before.
I’m now running CellMapper to get a better idea of what exactly is going on with cell tower location and coverage.
It feels like Google Fi’s MVNO data with T-Mobile has recently become deprioritized because either Google has decided to pay less in their terms with T-Mobile or T-Mobile is actively deprioritizing Google Fi customers in favor of their own direct customers.
You might spend most of your time within range of a good 5g tower then. I’m finding out here in Bellevue there are some surprisingly big pockets where it drops off to LTE, even in downtown and certainly in the residential areas.
The network dropping is how I initially started to notice how flaky my Fi experience had become. It’s like networking switching was seamless before and then something changed to degrade the transition experience. Before it was rare for me to see “!” icon here on the Eastside or be “connected” but with poor throughput.
It’s possible that more people aren’t noticing it because they might spend most of their time on a wi-fi network at home/work or within range of good tower. But after spending more time mapping with CellMapper it’s become clearer just how many areas aren’t served well by T-Mobile LTE or 5G.
I meant to say it could be a local congestion issue causing deprioritization of Google Fi traffic and maybe influenced by some policy we can’t see. Will try to find the priority info you mentioned.
See in op for Google Fi diagnostics showing they think everything is fine. Thanks for the suggestions.
Again, same phone, same location, no changes, rebooted regularly, eSIM-- basically stable testbed for noticing something’s up. Only really started to care when it became obvious the problem wasn’t just with the closest cell tower(s) by our home.