Homefusion Review
jv16823
Newbie

I recently moved in to a new home and found that cable and DSL were not available at my home. After several MONTHS of researching online, talking to people with different types of satellite service and Mifi services, I decided to try Homefusion. The advertised speeds were adequate, the ping rate was much faster than satellite, and supposedly was more reliable than standard 3g Mifi.

I went to a Verizon store and after about 10 minutes of waiting for an available rep, I was greeted by a friendly and knowledgeable rep. Since I had already done the research and knew that I wanted to start at the 10GB plan to test the waters, I was able to sign up for the service in about 15 minutes. In and out in less than 30 minutes... not bad!

The installer was scheduled to arrive between 4:00pm and 8:00pm three days later. I received two reminder phone calls and one reminder email from Verizon. The day of the install the installer called me at 4:00pm to tell me he was 30 minutes away. So far, so good! The installer arrived and we walked around the property looking to see where the best location to mount the cantenna would be. He had the cantenna hooked up to a batter pack so he could check the signal strength at each location before actually mounting the unit. After finding a spot with great signal and that was not an eyesore, we went inside to look how the wiring was going to work. I have an unfinished basement, so it was easy to place the router where I wanted and run the RG6 cable (standard coaxial cable) to it. After signing off on the mounting location and the wiring path, the installer went to work. 2 hours later the installer was finished and I fired up my laptop. I was able to log on immediately (after putting in the factory password for my router) and I went to speedtest.net to see what kind of speeds we were getting. I was thrilled to see a ping rate of 86, download speeds over 33 mbps, and upload speeds over 15 mbps. Obviously this is much faster than advertised speeds and I'm guessing it will drop down after more people start using the 4g network, but it's awesome for now!

I've had the system installed for 5 days now and each time I've fired up the laptop to use the internet I was able to log in with no problem. More speed tests have found similar speeds to my initial results. I also intentionally surfed the web in the middle of a pretty bad rain storm and didn't have any problems. Also, the router is mounted in the ceiling joists in my basement at the far end of my home. I have a ranch home and I get coverage in every room of the house.

I am also pleased with the data usage up until now. Five days into my plan and I have used .462GB of 10GB total. I've watched a couple YouTube videos, checked emails, sent emails, and checked out Facebook. My wife has done about 5 hours of research for her Master's class. We do turn off the laptop when not in use and our cell phones are not connected to the network. We're not gamers and don't have Netflix or anything like that so we're not downloading a ton of stuff.

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with Verizon Homefusion. I was extremely skeptical before installing because of all the terrible reviews I read regarding reliability and data usage, but I have had zero problems so far. I will try to keep this discussion updated if/when things start to change.

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Re: Homefusion Review
CFULK
Newbie

So you are NOT having the disconnect issues that every single other HF user is having?

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Re: Homefusion Review
jv16823
Newbie

That is correct. I'm as surprised as you, but I have not had any connection issues since install 6 days ago. Each and every time I go to use the internet I am connected with no hassle. I have not touched the router nor the cantenna since installation. With all the terrible reviews out there I thought for sure I was going to have some sort of issue. But, that is the main reason I wanted to write my review. Typically people only write reviews when they're unhappy with the service. We never hear about happy customers.  Smiley Happy

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Re: Homefusion Review
skitime
Newbie

I'm thinking of getting the Homefusion, but have been reading a lot of the posts about phantom data usage. Any problems with that?

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Re: Homefusion Review
jv16823
Newbie

I have not had any phantom data usage, but we also don't keep the computer upand running when we're not using it. Since it is a laptop and we use it in mulitple places, we usually close the lid (putting it in sleep mode) after we're done using it. Right now our cell phones are not connected to the network either because I didn't want to deal with ghost data usage. However, I will probably try connecting them next week to see what happens. One thing I read repeatedly is that cell phones account for a lot of the "ghost' usage because they are set to auto update the apps. Each time your phone does this, it uses data.

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Re: Homefusion Review
jv16823
Newbie

I had my first instance of "trouble" yesterday when I opened up my laptop to find it was connected to the network, but it was showing "No internet connection." I checked out the wireless router and it showed everything was good, but it still wasn't working. I tried restarting just the router, but that didn't help. What finally worked was restarting  unplugging and plugging in the cantenna power supply as well as restarting the router. It took about 5 minutes for the whole system to reboot, but it worked fine after that.

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Re: Homefusion Review
Schd134
Newbie

I've had mine for about 3 months now.  Was very impressed with speed compared to my slow and unpredictable DSL. After the initial excitement, ran in to similar issues with staying connected. Had to restart modem numerous times when it he router said it had internet but I could get nothing.

Great for streaming and general internet browsing but downloading files is terrible. Downloaded phone updates numerous times with file failures. Ended up downloading at my work. Garmin tried to download a navigator update at 1g plus each, and downloaded it 8 tries before I got a data alert on the 3rd day of my billing cycle at 75% plan usage. WHAT?  Every time it tried to download the file ended up corrupt. 

The 4g is apparently too fast for the equipment or the wireless technology cannot transmit a complete file. Called and tech said they can't control what's in the file or the file provided from the download site. They just don't understand the problem or are told to ignore it. The problem is poor data transfer wirelessly and apparently no buffer to make sure you get a compete file. Why not, they get paid by the data download so why do they care if you have to download a file a dozen times. There still making money and you use up your data and then charge you overage charges.

Works fine for screaming and you tube and music cause if you miss a bleep or bit or two, who cares.

I would not recommend unless you are in the middle of nowhere with no other options. If you can get a wired DSL, cable, etc I'd suggest that first.   Be prepared to take your critical downloads to work or mcdonalds wifi to get a good download. Tech even told me they recommend a wired connection for big downloads but then that's why I have homefusion broadband because I can't get a wired connection, duh!

Just tried to download another program update at 71mg and took 6 tries before I tried each of 4 files about 3-4 times separately to get a good download.  My 71mg download just cost me a gig!  It goes fast that way.

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Re: Homefusion Review
jv16823
Newbie

So it's been 1.5 months so I thought I would provide an update. The service continues to run virtually flawlessly. Each time I open up the laptop it connects immediately and I can surf the web. Twice since we had the system installed we have had to reset the cantenna and router because the laptop showed it was connected, but there was no internet access. Twice in 1.5 months isn't bad in my opinion...

I did do a speed test (speedtest.net) last week when I felt things were running slowly and found that it was only downloading at about 1.5mbs. This was a one time occurrence and haven't had any other issues besides that one time.

I did also add my cell phone to the network and have not had any real issues with ghost usage, etc. My phone is set to auto-update apps and these all happen without any issues and without using too much data.

Last month (my first full month) I approached 10 gb of usage, but I did not excede it. I do have alerts set at 50%, 75%, and 90% and received alerts for all three. We mainly use the internet for Facebook, email, and research. We watch a few Youtube videos, but we don't have Netflix, Hulu, etc.

Next month I will probably add my DVR to the network to see what kind of usage that adds and I'll try to add another update once I've had that going for a while.

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