Verizon’s new wireless 4G router plan bypasses net neutrality altogether

Verizon is marketing a new wireless 4G LTE router as a means of extending wireless connectivity into your home. It’s also a thinly-veiled enormous cash grab, and a convenient way for the company to wriggle out of the flimsy net neutrality requirements it’s simultaneously contesting in court. That’s quite a bit of functionality to pack into a single device, so let’s break it down.

The Verizon 4G LTE Broadband Router with Voice is $49.99 with a two-year contract, $199 flat-fee device from Verizon that connects your home directly to the cellular network. It’s the opposite of a microcell range extender. A microcell tower is a miniaturized cell phone tower that you drop inside your home to boost immediate cell phone coverage. The tower then uses your own internet service to backhaul the connection back to your cell provider. This Verizon router requires a strong cellular signal to start with, but provides a local wireless service to all the other devices in the home. Speeds, according to Verizon, are 2-5Mbps upload, 5-12Mbps download.

So, you pay Verizon $49.99 for the device, then $30 for the “Home Service Monthly Line Access On Share Everything Plans.” The basic plan is 500MB of data for $40. The basic options for just the router — no phone, no tablets, no nothing — looks like this:

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