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====== Info on Activating the Fi Phone, Tracking your Promo Discount, Completing the Promo and Pause/Cancel Fi Service after 120 days ====== added on 12/11/23 by hpham_53
* Activating the Fi S23 phone
When you get the phone:
1. The SIM is already installed in the phone, although the phone box is sealed.
2. Turn on the phone, connect it to WiFi and log into the same Google account that was used to purchase the phone.
3. Download and install the Fi app from Google Play Store.
4. Leave WiFi ON. Run the Fi app. It will insist that you turn Data ON. Go ahead and turn Data ON. It might use a few MB of Data before switching to WiFi. If FI charges you for that Data at all, it will be 1-3 cents added to the 2nd bill.
5. Go through the activation process with the app which will port in your number to Fi.
6. Your phone should be working on Fi then.
* Tracking Your Promo Discount
Log into your Fi account on the web site. There's a countdown in your Billing-->Fi Savings-->In Progress that shows how many more days your Fi service has to remain active. About 24 hrs after you activated the Fi SIM, the In Progress Tracker should show a checklist with entries like: Bought a phone, Got a discount, Activated the SIM, Stay xxx more days on Fi. Make sure the "Activate the SIM" entry is checkmarked and it shows 120 days to go. Then for a few days after that, keep checking the In Progress to make sure the countdown is decreasing each day. The countdown is updated at the same time each day (around the time of day that you activated the Fi SIM).
* How to Verify that your S23 promo was Earned
There's a countdown in your Billing-->Fi Savings-->In Progress that shows how many more days your Fi service has to remain active. The countdown will never say zero day. On the 120th day, it will stay at "1 more day". On the morning of the 121st day, the countdown should say "Stayed (past tense) active on Fi for 120 days in a row". Then later in the day, the In Progress column disappears, and the promo discount gets moved to the Earned column. At that time or later, it's safe to Cancel or Pause your Fi service.
You can use this Date Calculator: https://www.timeanddate
Enter your activation date as the Start Date, select Add 121 days and it'll show the date when it's safe to cancel/pause your Fi service.
* How to Cancel your Fi service
In your Fi account, click on Account-->Your Plan, scroll down until you see "Leave Google Fi". Click on that and follow the on-screen instructions. You'll have the options to Let Go your Fi phone number, or Transfer To Another Provider. (There used to be an option to port it back to Google Voice, but I think it's no longer available). If you choose to let go your Fi number, your Fi service will be cancelled IMMEDIATELY. If you choose to port out, your Fi service will remain active until your Fi number has been ported out to another provider.
* How to Pause your Fi service
In your Fi account, click on Account-->Your Plan, scroll down until you see "Pause Service". Click on that and follow the on-screen instructions. Your Fi service will be paused and Automatically Resumed after 90 days, unless you cancel it before 90 days are up. Once it's Resumed, you can leave it Active, or Cancel it, or Pause again (I don't know how many times you can Pause). If you have a lot of remaining referral Fi credit (which is not refundable), you can choose Pause instead of Cancel to wait and see if there will be new Fi promotions in the future to use up your Fi credit.
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Anyone got the phone from fi, can you confirm if phone is sim and boot loader unlocked or just sim?
What would be total cost on fi + phone to get it unlocked and out door?
im curreently on a grandfathered plan with tmobile and the price has been locked in for over 10yrs now and wanted to know what changes to expect before i jump over to google fi
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S23 already got these updates.
That said, the S24 is due out in January, and I believe for the S23 and S22, Fi did this deal on release day for the device. I'm banking they're going to do the same this year. While I realize there's always a risk that Fi will never run this deal again, I really doubt it, so I'm taking my chances.
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Also when you sign up use a FI referral code from Reddit to get $20 off your next month of service. Share your referral code for others to use on Reddit, and you will get more referral credits to go towards the 120 days. I eventually got five people to use my referral code from posting on Reddit in several of the FI referral forums.
Fi's big advantage is for international roaming (if you use either the Flex or the Unlimited Plus plan). Their multi line pricing for the unlimited plans is decent; the flex plan is somewhat overpriced if you are using it for local only (no international roaming).
XM's advantage is if you have multiple lines on the By-The-Gig plan; their unlimited plans are not as good as US Mobile on Verizon.
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