If you get an error code of “B050” when trying to activate your “Google Fi” service, it is because you are identified as not being in the US right now. This was confirmed to my by Google Support on the phone a few minutes ago.
Whether this is being identified by your IP address or your phone’s location, I can’t tell (yet). Could be that I bring up a VPN to check… 😉
2020-02-19 Update: I was just too curious, so only a day later I quickly wrapped up a VPN with a source IP from the US (thanks, AWS! :-)). And, presto, I could activate Google Fi. So it is crystal clear that they identify you by your IP address.
I could make calls via VoWiFi, but when I disabled WiFi I couldn’t attach to the mobile network. This is probably because I’ve never joined my “home (mobile) network” yet. I’ll be in Florida soon, then I will join the mobile network there. And I’m sure when I return to Germany I’ll be able to join German mobile networks as well…
7 replies on “Google Fi Activation fails with Error Code B050”
can you tell us how can we activate Google fi out of US because it doesn’t work with VPN ,
ID : B050
You mean it doesn’t work with the specific VPN you were using? Well, that can be, many services are known to detect VPNs and block them.
I’ve found that it did work for me, though, so generally it can work. I built my own VPN gateway, setting up an AWS EC2 instance with OpenVPN, and that did the trick. There’s plenty of howtos available on the Internet, so just try it out…
Hi Saad. You mean you are based within the US, and still you can’t activate it?
In this case I can only suggest to use a different way to access the internet, like from a cafe, or from work or from a friend’s home. Maybe for whatever reason your current provider assigns IP addresses that are not recognized as being in the US… That sometimes happens…
Or are you outside the US, and you try to use a VPN, and it doesn’t work anyway with that specific VPN? Then, as already suggested earlier, I would recommend to try to use a different one. If nothing else, you could set up your own VPN in Amazon Web Services (or ask a friend to do so). As you know, for me that did the trick…
Good luck.
I have active the Google Fi outside US , but theres one problem , I cant get service from my iphone ( No service ) , the Google Fi said to me u must be in US to active service
Do u have any idea about this issue ?
I don’t fully understand what you’re saying, TBH.
On the one hand you say:
On the other hand you wrote:
So it is “active” or not? I understand you are having issues “using” it, but first we need to understand whether it was activated or not.
If you are trying to “activate” it (become a customer with an “active subscription”), then it may fail for the very same reason it failed for me. In that case I would recommend you get yourself a VPN with a US source IP address, and then try again.
If Google Fi **is** active for you already, but it simply doesn’t work in your place, then I can only guess. Maybe the service is intentionally blocked in your home network or in the place where you live? In that case a VPN could also help.
Sorry, I’m only guessing here, and I don’t even have an iPhone so that I could do some testing myself.
Good luck.
I’m currently outside the US, I’m trying to activate my new google fi sim card but I’m getting error B057. Do you know what this code means by any chance? I’m not getting the VPN error message, I found out if I change the US city location on my VPN (NordVPN), I can “bypass” the VPN detection system, but still won’t let me activate the sim card. It says something about my account not being authorized for service? And it shows a B057 error
Hi Franz. I fear I have no real idea what might be going wrong. Just a wild guess, maybe somehow your payment profile is incorrect? I believe I had to activate a payment profile in Google that has a US street address associated with it. No problem for me, as I have relatives there, but it seems you may live in the US anyway, so most likely you have an US address in your payment profile already?
Anyway, I guess you googled it already? I just did that, and indeed I didn’t find any meaningful hits for that error code… 🙁
Sorry that I can’t help, and good luck, hopefully you’ll find it out soon…