Building a 4G LTE network is expensive, but it’s also relatively cheap compared to building out a wired network, especially when that network consists of people who live in rural communities. Copper isn’t exactly a budget material, and fiber optic cables are simply out of the question, so what do people who want to live in the sticks do for high speed internet? Some go to their local library, but that’s a tad bit inconvenient, so that’s where Verizon HomeFusion comes in. It’s a terrible name for a fairly straightforward concept: stick an antenna on the side of your house and use the same network you use to make calls to connect your desktop and laptop to the internet. Anyone who has ever turned their phone into a hotspot is already familiar with what I’m talking about; HomeFusion just takes things to the next level by using an antenna that’s about the size of a pineapple.
The bigger question is will we ever reach a point where moving bits via wires simply becomes too much of a hassle? Think about a future where Verizon would offer you a large antenna you’d stick on the side of your house and then through that antenna you’d get broadband, HDTV, and even a home phone line. Combine that with what you’re already paying to use your smartphone every month, and you have a quad play offering. Cable companies tried to do that when they bought up a whole bunch of AWS spectrum, but ultimately they gave up. Technologies like LTE-Advanced promise to deliver at least a gigabit per second to fixed locations, so … the potential is there.
Anyway, back to HomeFusion. It’s now available to anyone in the United States. $60 per month gets you 10 GB of data. Double that to $120 per month and you get 30 GB of data. Overage charges are $10 per GB. Installation costs a whopping $200. Thinking of picking it up?