Does Network Service Tiers relate with Always Free Instances?

[Seungmin Kim]

https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/

I am using a f1-micro Always Free instance in us-west1, and created a static IPv4 IP. However, the console said that only the Premium tier is available. Does the Premium tier make the Always Free tier not free, or are there any precautions I should take, provided that I keep under the limits for Always Free?
If it is not free, then it means that the us-west1 cannot use static IPs for Always Free.
Please clarify about this.
Thank you.

[Seungmin Kim]

By the way, how can I change my static IP from Premium to Standard?

[Fady (Google Cloud Platform)]

Hello Seungmin,

Network service tiering is relatively new, and still in beta at the moment. Thus, using either tiers (Premium or Standard) and as mentioned in this document, you get free “1GB network egress from North America to all region destinations per month (excluding China and Australia)”.

However, exceeding this limit (not free anymore), you should get charged per the tier you are using, but that is not the case now. As per the current restrictions in this document

“Pricing for Premium and Standard Tiers is provided for informational purposes only. You will be charged at current Premium rates in beta even if you configure the Standard Tier. The new pricing will take effect once Network Service Tiers is Generally Available (GA).”

Note that this is subject to change at any moment because the product is still in beta, and I advise to regularly check the documents [1] [2] for any changes in the future.

Furthermore, answering your main question about standard availability, it is not yet available in all regions. As of today it is only available in “us-central1, us-east1, and europe-west” regions. Thus the console issue you are facing.

Moreover, if you require changing the tier for the entire project or creating a new static IP (while choosing the tier) you may check this guide. At the moment, you can not change tiers for a static IP. However, you can release it, or create a new one.

[Laurence Parry]

Network service tiering is relatively new, and still in beta at the moment. Thus, using either tiers (Premium or Standard) and as mentioned in this document, you get free “1GB network egress from North America to all region destinations per month (excluding China and Australia)”.

...

Note that this is subject to change at any moment because the product is still in beta, and I advise to regularly check the documents [1] [2] for any changes in the future.

It seems that the first document has changed, as it now states:

> Always Free Usage Limits apply to Premium Tier.

and

> Always Free Usage Limits do not apply to Standard Tier.

So I'm guessing that your free usage only comes from Premium. Perhaps this is because existing public IPs that would have been created as the only option then, which was Premium. Or because it is the fastest option, and Google wants people on a trial to get the best experience possible. However, it's a bit counter-intuitive, as Standard is promoted as the cheapest option.

Indeed, the reason I wanted to select it was to avoid costs for a small portion of the network traffic being to Australia - since on Standard tier all egress would come from the USA. (The use of the words "limits" is unfortunate, because a limit is usually a bad thing; in this case it seems to be more of an allowance. The links also do not appear to go to a valid section/anchor in the All Pricing.)

The words "premium tier" are not mentioned in the detailed summary of Google Free Tier, so I plan to try to get classification via chat.