US carrier Verizon Wireless is to set test the waters of both the home phone and broadband industry.
The company has announced a 4G LTE-powered home router. It’s a rather simple device, which powers Wi-Fi to connect to up to 10 devices simultaneously. There’s a jack for home phones and space for three ethernet connections. Of course, the draw back to running on the speedy 4G network is that users will have to be much more weary of data consumption, and it shouldn’t even be considered by those that use the internet for most of the day.
On top of that, the network will share data usage with your other devices, so using a smartphone out in the world will greatly limit your consumption back at home.
This is obviously a scheme with very limited appeal, but Verizon is hoping to attract the likes of small businesses with need of a portable router and phone line. A voice-only plan costs $20 a month, while the plan with data costs $30 a month, so at least this isn’t the most costly service running.
The device, on sale today, costs $200 at retail.
Source: Cnet
