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Walt asked: “Has anyone else had a problem with the Project fi, when it picks the wrong cellular network. I live close to a Sprint tower which is 3G, but my phone keeps wanting to go to the 4G T-Mobile tower that is much further away and I can’t make phone calls. I have to use software and switch it back to Sprint. It’s frustrating.”
Walt, that is a very common complaint with Project Fi and it turns out that is rooted in something called the “PLMN selection practice.”
PLMN is public land mobile network, and the Project Fi phones are programmed in such a way that they will not switch carriers unless the signal from the present carrier goes away completely. The phone also remembers the last carrier it was connected with and tries to find that carrier again on power up.
Salvation might be just two dollars away.
That is certainly not as useful as it could be. However, salvation might be just two dollars away. FiSwitch is an app in the Google Play store selling for $1.99 and it works with Project Fi to present a list of available networks and allows you to switch between them by simply selecting the one you want.
What it won’t do is tell you which network has the best signal where you are. Once you are connected to a network, you can find out which towers have what level of signal to you, so trial and error could get you to the best carrier, but it sounds to us like you know what carrier you want, and just want to switch the phone there.
FiSwitch will do exactly that. There are also some dial codes that you can add to your Contacts and switch networks by dialing them, but for two dollars this app sure seems a lot easier.
We hope this helps!