Again in 2020, Google’s in-house incubator—Space 120—launched an experimental Wi-Fi platform referred to as Orion Wi-Fi that gave locales a technique to promote Wi-Fi capability to carriers. Now the corporate is increasing Google Fi protection utilizing that tech, and calling it the “W+ community.”
Final yr, Google ran a trial of OpenRoaming, which allowed subscribers to hook up with Google Fi Wi-Fi hotspots for prolonged protection exterior their residence networks. Orion Wi-Fi operates with the same idea and permits public venues to supply Wi-Fi to clients totally free, and make a bit of cash by opening up their present community (and with out having to buy or arrange any extra {hardware} or software program. And, most notably, OpenRoaming utilization didn’t depend in opposition to your information cap throughout that trial.
Now, Google has exited that trial part and is now calling the characteristic the W+ community, and utilizing it will depend in opposition to your month-to-month information cap. Moreover, the power to entry and use the expanded Wi-Fi community is a characteristic solely open to Google’s gadgets operating Android 12 (suppose: the corporate’s newer Pixel smartphones).
Pixel homeowners with a Google Fi plan can now see accessible Fi W+ networks, which can seem because the mobile indicator, “W+,” of their system’s standing bar. Any appropriate gadgets will mechanically connect with the brand new community every time it’s in vary, like at airports, stadiums, and purchasing facilities (with Google promising that protection “will broaden over time”).
Nevertheless, that characteristic has one caveat: Google states that W+ “by no means mechanically connects when one in all your saved Wi-Fi networks, like your property community, is close by and accessible.” And once more, any information you utilize by way of that connection will mechanically depend in opposition to your Google Fi month-to-month information cap; in the event you’re on the service’s Versatile plan, you can be charged for traditional use.
Customers can even disconnect from W+, both turning it off quickly or completely opting out of the characteristic. To quickly disconnect, merely flip off Wi-Fi in your system or manually connect with a special community. To show off automated W+ connection, open your system’s Settings menu, choose “Community & Web,” then “SIM,” then “Google Fi,” then “W+ Connections.” Likewise, you’ll be able to allow that characteristic once more by following the identical steps.
Supply: Google by way of Android Authority