Home Fusion Install Review

[YB10]

Hello everyone. I found this forum very helpful when contemplating signing up for home fusion so I wanted to take a second and provide some long but useful information about my experience so far to those who might be thinking about it. Being a first time Verizon customer with home fusion as my only device, my impression so far is a dishonest company with a great product/service.

Upon entering the local VZW store I was happy to see a HF advertisement in the window. When I walked in I was greeted and let the associate know I was interested in HF. I felt that the associate was somewhat disappointed that I was here for HF and not a new cell phone plan, but he cordially invited me to his desk. The associate asked how much I knew about the service, I replied that I had read a lot about it and would be interested in the 20gb/$90 month plan. Lots of typing and exchanging information, the associate then inquired about my cell phone service. Told him I was with ATT and wasn't interested in discussing my cell phone service. He then pulled out an information booklet and VERY briefly showed me the share everything plan I could get if I also had my cell with VZ. Not wanting to say "why the hell would I sign up to pay $20 more a month for half the data plus another $20 access fee", I kindly said no thank you just the $90/month standalone plan. Ok, so after more typing and a very long awkward silence, the associate had to get help from another because it was the first time he had set up HF. The associate was very concerned with entering the device IMEI into some separate system, which I took to be their sales tracking database so the associate would get his commission. I work in sales and would never dream of discussion commission in front of a client, if there was an issue with commission I would save it until the customer left. When we first started talking the associate said they almost always install the cantenna the next day, so I considered it another red flag when the associate asked at the end of the encounter if wednesday a week from now would work. Whatever, I was in no hurry. The associate also made no mention of the 14 day grace period, but I had read about that here so no big deal. A couple of handshakes and I was off.

The installer gave me a call the night before installation to let me know he would be there around 2, a couple hours earlier than the end of the installation window. He also gave me a call when he was on the way to my house the next day, which was very professional. The installer arrived in a small car and asked to come inside to look at the router location. He was very adamant about installing the router in a corner of my house that was piled up with junk and very out of the way. At this point it became obvious that he was looking for the quickest job possible because he proposed the antenna location to be on the roof right on the other side of that wall. No wonder he got there so early. I told him that I prefer to have it in the center of the house inside my entertainment center set up so that I could hook up my Xbox and Satellite box (satellite had not been installed yet) with ethernet. "Well that Xbox has Wifi right, you could just use that". Ok but the satellite box is going to need an ethernet connection. "No no no they have wifi too". A quick internet search and common sense would tell you that this was a lie. We reached a stalemate here, so we went outside to test the antenna strength for the proposed cantenna location. It was good, so we came back to the discussion of the router location. My home is a mobile home with rock around the bottom so there is one square door that lets you go under the house. I apologized for the situation but insisted that I needed to router in the middle of the house for the satellite box ethernet connection. The installer then flat out said "well I can tell you right now I'm not going under the house" and "If I were going to do that I'd have to call and have them charge you extra for a custom installation and come back at a later date" Some awkward silence then I said that when dish network was installed previously (hadn't been used for many years) the installer was more than willing to go under there to get me the proper connection. I then showed the installer the old dish cable running right by where he was installing the cantenna and down under the house to the spot where I wanted the router. The installer informed me that HF uses the same cable so he would just splice into the old one so I could have it where I wanted. Ok, I was more than fine with that, but if that old cable had not been there I would have called verizon and requested they send another installer out to do a proper job. So the cantenna was installed, the installer did a good job hyping up the product, and a speedtest confirmed that I was getting 25mb down and 14 up! That kind of speed quickly made me forget about our awkward interaction.

So from there I tried to sign up for myverizon to monitor data usage very closely during the grace period. Since I didn't have a verizon cell phone, I was not able to sign up until they mailed a password out to me. Strange way to try to sell somebody a cell phone, but whatever, I settled for calling the 1-800 number at the end of the day to get my usage. At this point, the auto system informed me that I had used .000something of my plan after the first day, very happy about that, however, the next message is what infuriated me. The auto system had informed me that I was signed up for the share everything data plan, the plan I specifically told the store associate I wasn't interested in. How the hell can I have a share everything plan with no other devices to share the data with? It was clear the store associate received a greater commission for signing me up for a cell phone data plan instead of the standalone HF plan we agreed on. Reading the forums here it seems that this is a common occurrence. The first telephone rep I got in touch with lied and said that the HF plan was the share everything plan, then acknowledged that the store associate probably did what I suspected, but another lie came when he said he was not able to change the plan and that I would have to go back to the store to change it. No dice, I asked for a supervisor and very angrily explained the situation. She offered to credit any fees for prorated usage I had received so far and change the plan back to the HF standalone plan. Still being withing the 14 day grace period, I said give me something more or cancel the service and explain to me how to return the equipment. I felt like a gigantic tool for keeping the service after all the dishonesty, but alas I live where HF and satellite are the only options. The supervisor offered to give me the first month's service for free and was very apologetic throughout. I was ok with that, so she changed it back, applied to discount, and even gave me a call back a couple hours later to let me know everything was done. Very nice and professional, but it's sad it had to come to that point to get somebody with those attributes. When I received my password by mail, I signed up for my verizon and confirmed the plan was corrected and the credits were applied.

Now to address some issues I've been reading about on here. As far as "ghost data" or stolen data or excess data used by the cantenna, I can honestly say I have not ran into these issues. I have been using the service for almost two weeks and am at just over 3GB. I have never had to turn off the router or unplug the cantenna. Usage devices consist of xbox live, two computers and two iphones. Xbox uses very minimal data, which has been confirmed online many times. Light web browsing on the computers, about an hour a day. My wifes iphone is connected all the time, mine is rarely connected because I have the grandfathered unlimited att data plan but I will connect when cell service is lacking. I check usage once a day and it is right on line with what I expect. I have a feeling that some people who think they are getting metered for double usage might not be aware of how much data video streaming uses. I streamed the iphone press conference in HD and confirmed that it used a little under 1GB. I was a heavy netflix user at my apartment, but I have settled with saving netflix viewing for the end of the month to eat up any extra data. It is also my impression that data usage on my verizon is updated twice a day, in the evening and the early morning hours, so that may be why some people see big data usage at ungodly hours in the morning when nothing is running. Home Fusion is the only internet service I can get (gaming with satellite was a dealbreaker) but I am very happy with it. Tremendous speeds, no maintenance thus far, and data reporting has been accurate for me. It may very well be that the data bugs have been fixed in the newer equipment but whatever the reason I am getting accurate metering. If you are considering the service I would recommend it, however I would also caution to pay very close attention to the dishonest people you will probably deal with. You will probably be signed up for the share everything plan no matter what you tell the store employees, so be sure to call and check what plan you are signed up for, and if that is the case ask for a supervisor and demand a bill credit. Be firm with the installer, they will most likely take the easiest way out and say that it's not possible to install it any other way. Monitor that data and hold off on the HD video, if you are contemplating HF its because you have no other options so no video is better than no internet. Any questions please ask.