I brought my Google Pixel with the Google Fi service to China, South Korea, and Japan. So this would be a great test on how well Google Fi works outside of the US. Especially in China where Google, Facebook, YouTube, and some other big websites are blocks. Here is a list of blocked websites by China aka “The Great Firewall”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
China
Arrival: As soon as I arrived in Shanghai. I turned on my phone and tried to connect. It took a little bit to connect, but once I was connected I didn’t have much trouble connecting with the phone + serviced. Sometimes the service would disconnect. Just needed to wait it out to get that back in place.
The speed wasn’t the fastest. In some areas I was able to go LTE.
Biggest benefit, Google products, such as Google Drive, Google Word, and etc. were allowed! Also, Facebook was allowed too! Not sure how Google did it, but not only are they able to pull it off, they were able to deliver a quality service. I had to do a quick call to a hotel in Shanghai and was able to get connected quickly.
South Korea
Arrival: As soon as I landed, it only took a few minutes for the Pixel + Google Fi to recognize the service. I noticed that the speed was a lot faster compared to China. This is probably some odd issue with my phone because my friend that came with me that runs the same setup didn’t have some of these disconnected problem.
As for the speed and call quality, The speed was very good and the call quality was good. I was surprised I was able to call to people in Korea without having to dial anything special other than their numbers.
Japan
I haven’t arrived there yet, so TBD.
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