Following a trial launch in select markets in March, Verizon Wireless has officially expanded its HomeFusion residential LTE broadband service across its LTE coverage area around the country. As previously reported, Verizon HomeFusion is designed as the last mile substitute for residential areas not covered by Verizon’s DSL or FiOS deployments and is meant for those customers without a viable fixed line broadband option otherwise.
The service consists of a Cantenna, mounted outside the home at its highest point, modified with multiple internal antennae to increase indoor reception and will be installed at no charge, while the equipment cost will be set at $199.99. The actual installation will be handled through Asurion while Verizon will also provide the router which will allow for four wired connections and up to 20 wireless connections via Wi-Fi.
Pricing for the offering is set at three tiers, with plans starting at $59.99 for 10GB of access, 20GB of data for $89.99 per month, or $120 per month for 30GB of data and all have an overage rate of $10/1GB past each respective allowance. Starting today, new customers will be getting their monthly data allowance doubled for the first two months (20GB for $59.99, 40GB for $89.99, and 60GB for $120) as an introductory promotion.
With the addition and nationwide expansion of the HomeFusion service, it’s also seeking to target its LTE network to those looking for a more reliable and less costly alternative to satellite broadband access, such as those living outside of city limits or newly developed suburban divisions that haven’t had cable/DSL/FiOS infrastructure deployed. The expansion also means that Verizon Wireless is confident enough in the stability of its network to expand the offering outside of the initial test markets, as the carrier has had multiple high-profile issues with LTE network outages in the past few months.
Even though HomeFusion is targeted as a residential offering, one key issue will be how Verizon prioritizes those HomeFusion users in terms of network access compared to smartphone owners and LTE hotspots as well as the higher pricing and monthly usage tiers that are closer to monthly satellite access with expensive per gigabyte overages.
To whom is this targeted? 10GB is just so little for home use.
Ridiculously overpriced.
The main targets of this plan are two-fold:
1) People who need a fast backup Internet connection that can function reliably, even during power outages. Many businesses still utilize Satellite Internet because they need speeds greater than EV-DO, but also require business-critical fallback.
2) Customers in rural areas. As 4G LTE is rolled out in rural areas, many customers are stuck with few options, either slow-and-throttled Satellite Internet, or no high-speed Internet service at all. Verizon is looking to capitalize on offering home Internet service in these areas.
Until true 4G service becomes pervasive on rivals, these caps will be small. They will rise with competition in that marketplace… and trust me, there will be plenty of that in the near future.
Wow, there must be a lot of rich folks out there that can afford a secondary/backup system at $200 setup and $60+ a month, with caps!
Just look at the prices for Satellite Internet, and you start to see how it can make sense…
http://www.hughesnet.com/residential-satellite-internet/plans.cfm
Note the Download Allowance on those HughesNet plans…
Both seem lame to me. Uverse has 250GB limit, which isn’t even enforced!
Jeff, the problem is in rural areas, it obviously is lame. Congress and multiple Presidents now have talked about affordable rural Internet service… at least this is a step in the right direction. Once Sprint or AT&T jump on the bandwagon, these rates will start to go down… for the first time ever, they might actually get reasonable.
It’s sad, but a lot of people can’t afford to live in rural areas because of the lack of broadband Internet. I’d argue it’s one thing that would really accelerate the recovery of the housing market.