The good: The Verizon Hub allows you to make and receive calls like a regular telephone over your home broadband network. It sends and receives text and multimedia messages, streams V Cast videos, provides traffic reports, and more. There's also a Verizon Relay feature that acts like a family bulletin board.

The bad: You can't send and receive text messages from non-Verizon Wireless phones. The Hub is expensive, with not only device costs but monthly fees. Video quality is mediocre. It won't work when your power and network connection are down.

The bottom line: The Verizon Hub is an all-in-one telephone, communications center, and entertainment system, but it isn't cheap.