I have been reading comments about HF and am currently afraid to try it. I have been using the Mi-Fi and every since my area has been upgraded to 4G my data usage has increased, no change in actual on-line usage. Made numerous calls to VZ with no satisfactory results. One representative actually told me that the data usage I'm seeing at My Verizon is an estimate. Wow! If estimating usage, and not actually metering it, I can better understand why data usage increases. I'll continue to review options for wireless internet.
Is there any way to track how much data each device is using? Between my wife and I we are using several devices and to see how it breaks down.
I have had the service for over 4 months and it has not worked since the technician left. The yellow light on the router flashes, I received a new router, it still does not work. How can they continue to bill me and never provide the service? maybe the FCC needs to know about this.
I've been using my own mobile broadband router, a CradlePoint CTR35 in conjunction with a LG Verizon VL600 mobile broadband card for several years now. I disabled the wireless features of the mobile broadband router and am using it as a gateway only running an ethernet cable from the mobile broadband router to the WAN (Internet) port of my Netgear router I use for the house. I have the mobile broadband router and card sitting next to a window and have had no issues to speak of maintaining a true 24/7 Internet connection over 4G. More importantly, my data usage as stated by Verizon month to month continues to be accurate though I've always felt the stated data usage by Verizon is inflated to some degree. I pay for the $80/month 10GB plan, every portion of 1GB over that being another $10. The only reason I was considering this Home Fusion product is because it offers the $120/month 30GB plan. Presently it's quite common for my home's monthly usage to equal or exceed 14GB which ends up costing me $120 or more for the month. Naturally the Home Fusion $120/month 30GB plan is very attractive to me, but after reading this thread and other feedback found on the Internet regarding this product there is no way I'm going to entertain this solution.
I'll point out as well that I have a separate Verizon account just for the mobile broadband card that I use for providing my home 24/7 Internet access. When Verizon introduced their family share plan I went over to that and the data usage for the card started going through the roof much like the replies here with respects to this Home Fusion product. I wasted hours on the phone with Verizon over the course of 3 months about this as my data usage continued to tip off the scales, seriously off the scales. I'm an IT professional that works full-time from home and consider myself more than capable when it comes to properly monitoring my home's data usage. After ruling out all other possibilities which I knew was a waste of time to begin with I removed my mobile broadband card from the family share plan and opened a new account with Verizon just for that card convinced from the very start that was the issue. Issue resolved. My data usage went right back month to month where it should be at that point and has been ever since. That being said, I did contact Verizon recently about these Home Fusion data plans asking them to consider offering these plans to their customers who already own mobile broadband cards not that we'll ever see that happen. At the very least they could perhaps offer these plans to those customers who they can verify per their billing address are not eligible for Verizon's other Internet service offerings. Is that too much to ask?
We've just finished our first year with Home Fusion. Similar to other comments I've read, our experience has been a mixed bag. On the plus side, when it works it is blazingly fast internet. The flip side of that is that we experience several "drops" a day where we lose internet access for 20-30 minutes. The weird thing is that sometimes the times are very consistent, for awhile we were losing internet at 6 AM *every* morning.
The service is pricey, but for our families internet usage this is the best option available to us. We don't do Netflix, Hulu, etc., but other than that we don't really restrict our internet usage. The kids play games online, and we watch YouTube videos every now and then. We typically use about 33 gigabytes a month. We have the 30 gigabyte plan, so we are paying about $150/month for internet service. It sucks to be so expensive, but I guess that's the price we pay for the privilege of living in a rural area.
My biggest desire for the service, aside from improving the reliability and eliminating the "drops", would be for some bigger data packages. The internet becomes more data intensive every day, and Verizon's packages don't keep up. I'd like to see them offer 40 and 50 gigabyte packages.
In the end, I don't regret going with Home Fusion. None of the wireless broadband options are without their own issues, but the speed of Verizon's offering is a strong selling point. At least until DSL or Cable makes an appearance in my neck of the woods...
We've had HF for about a year now. I wish I had other options from other carriers available, as HF really DOES NOT work.
Two major issues:
1. Link resets several times per day. A reset takes 10 minutes +/- and really interferes with working from home, etc.
2. Large data transfers on link are unreliable. Getting larger security/patch downloads for Microsoft/Mac is almost impossible. I've blown my data cap this month trying to download patches for my wife's Mac. Download- corrupt, try again- corrupt, etc.
Calling Verizon Support is useless: "Have you powered off your PC, the router and the antenna?" is about all they know how to "help with".
If Verizon could fix the technical issues with the HF service, I'd be much happier. These issues have been reported by many folks on the forums, yet Verizon seems to be deaf to them.
Sorry to hear of these negative results with home fusion. In my case, this is the best I could wish for. After horrible results with att I switched to home fusion and cannot be happier. My location is in the boonies of northern Michigan, without cable or dsl options it was homefusion or satellite. In a previous, much slower att plan I never used over 5gb but chose the 10 gb plan with homefusion just to be on the safe side. With the homefusion fast lane up and down I am still just at 5gb per month. After six months of steady reliable performance, I have no complaints. With att it was monthly calls to customer service that produced nothing but hours of run around.
Maybe ther is some troublshooting to be done in your particular situations. In any event I wish you all better luck.
Tim
I recently had Home Fusion installed. I love the speed of it but that is the only thing I like. I don't like the times when you cannot access the internet because it won't connect. Also the data usage restrictions are a real problem. I got the 10g plan and have had to upgrade one month already. I am the only person using 1 computer, a smartphone and a kindle. The Kindle seems to use up a lot of data but my issue is that Verizons plans are for such a small about of data a month and the price compared to other providers. I would like to know if anyone knows who to address these issues with to get the message to Verizon that this is a big problem. I don't know how anyone with kids can use this service without going over even the 30g plan. I know that Comcast allows 300g per month on their plan and At&T allows 150g. So why so little data allowance at such a high price with Verizon? I think they need to look at this problem and try and make this a more user friendly service for us consumers. Verizon customer service has been very nice about this issue when I have contacted them but they really don't seem to understand the whole scope of issues this service presents to the customer. Who wants to be so worried each time they use their devices that they are going to go over their limit. It just makes it stressful and not a nice experience to know that you will be getting that data alert with a lot of time left for that month.
I have told CS and higher ups that there needs be a unlimited on weekend for HF, and 30 GB starter plan and 60 for 2nd plan and 150 for higher up plan for weekdays would be a start, this needs be sepreated from cell phone type plans.
I totally agree! We've had the home fusion for a total of 5 months. Besides the data cramming on our account, the service is the worst we have ever had! We have had the satellite tv providers out to our home many times, even trimmed trees just trying to have a good enough signal to be able to use their service. There are so many trees surrounding my house it is virtually impossible to receive a good signal. We do not have a good line of sight. When our home fusion was installed the technician had a hard time keeping the signal up, that was the first sign that this adventure would be a failure. Our internet constantly dropped throughout the day and night, the phone always had an extreme amount of static most of the time, worst phone service we have ever had as well. The "icing on the cake" was when we were unable to receive updates or downloads! When they say 4G lite they mean it, I did the research. It turns out that home fusion is as substandard a service as you can get. They claim to have done testing as to our signal and say everything is fine, we say if everything is so fine why are we unable to receive updates and downloads? We feel as though after all of the data cramming, not having decent phone service and substandard (worse than phone modem like internet service) we were robbed, we want a refund. People should not be treated this way
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