Karma: a 4G provider that rewards users for sharing

[503ducati]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/14/30...arwire-network

"Something is fundamentally broken in the market for mobile providers," says Robert Gaal, one of the founders of Karma, a startup that just graduated from the TechStars NY accelerator program. "We want to give everyone a mobile, 4G hotspot that lives in their pocket. It's open to everyone, and lets you pay as you go. Best of all it works no matter what carrier or what device you're using."

The Karma hotspot costs $69 and is powered by Clearwire's network, which provides WiMax 4G service in 80 major US cities. Users pay $14 per gigabyte of data they use, with no monthly fee or minimums. The twist is that Karma makes your hotspot into an open Wi-Fi network. When a new user joins, they are taken to a personalized page about the owner of the hotspot. Strangers can then sign in with their Facebook account and get 100MB of free browsing. For every user who does that, the owner of Karma gets 100MB of free data credited to his account. The company calls this "social telecom."

Today the company announced that it raised a little under $1 million from a group of venture capitalists and angel investors including Werner Vogels, Kal Vepuri, Chang Ng, Jerry Neumann, David Tisch, David Cohen, BOLDstart Ventures, 500 Startups, and Collaborative Fund.

It's an interesting time for Karma to enter the market, as the large mobile carriers are increasingly moving away from charging per call and text, their traditional streams of revenue, and becoming data wholesalers. Earlier this week, Verizon introduced its shared data plan, which provides unlimited talk and text, and also lets users purchase a single package of data they can share among their devices.

http://www.yourkarma.com/

The team from Karma travelled from Amsterdam to New York for the three-month TechStars program. "A decade ago, Europe was clearly the leader in cellular phones," said Gaal. "But now, with today's smartphones and tablets, America has emerged as the most mature mobile market."

A recent study found that the average smartphone user consumes 221MB of data per month. On Karma, that would work out to a monthly cost of $3.09. Verizon charges $50 for 1GB on its new shared plan and it charges users as much as $40 for each device they want to use beyond the first one. AT&T's mobile data plans charge $20 for 300MB of data and require a commitment of $50 for 5GB in order to enable the tethering that turns a device into a mobile hotspot.

While Karma has had talks with all the big providers, it won't reveal if it has any traction with bigger networks than Clearwire. The company has partnered with an ODM in Asia for the hardware and hopes to have 500 hotspots going in its first test market, New York City, by the end of the year. "Nobody has done for mobile data what Dropbox has done for storage or Google has done for email," says Gaal. "We are going to move the industry forward by creating a drop dead simple, user friendly way to consume mobile data."

[GadgetKen]

I like the idea. It's great to see this race to the bottom on data pricing!

Think it's useful for:

1. Sharing wi-fi access with others without worrying public users will inadvertently use up your data allotment or cause you to pay data overages. Plus this service actually encourages and rewards you for sharing

2. Commercial users. Might be ideal for a small business to set up a wi-fi hotspot for customers with minimal equipment outlay.

3. Those on very tight budgets. Can see a shoestring traveler or student using one of those to get portable wifi access gratis by having others access the public portion of the hotspot.

Might consider one of these myself if they expand the NYC test area to CT. Realistically my primary access is by AT&T postpaid LTE modem with a FAN discount....that gives me coverage in rural areas(including home that is an AT&T and Verizon area, but has no Clear coverage), at work and when traveling. The Netzero Clear modem I'm using right now is for secondary service(200 mb free plan), as is the occasional free wifi hotspot I run into...these help stretch out my 5 gb AT&T data allotment.

I'd probably use Karma as a courtesy when traveling so others who don't have cellular modems can get on the internet for a 100 mb session for free...the bonus data session I would get would be a nice perk.

[503ducati]

Draper Fisher Jurvetson invests in social bandwidth MVNO Karma

http://gigaom.com/mobile/draper-fish...th-mvno-karma/

DFJ’s official Twitter account revealed the investment Monday morning, and when contacted, both DFJ and Karma confirmed that the venture capital firm has joined the virtual carrier’s $1 million seed round. According to Karma, investors include TechStars’ Adam Rothenberg, David Cohen and David Tisch; Amazon’s Werner Vogels, Trisiras Group’s Kal Vepuri, BOLDstart Ventures, 500 Startups, and Collaborative Fund.

[GadgetKen]

Karma just went live. http://www.yourkarma.com

Don't have a need for it at the current time since I have wi-fi access in certain locations, an AT&T postpaid LTE modem with a FAN discount, and a flashed Sprint Novatel 2200 3G mifi device on Boost Mobile/Sprint as a backup to the others.

But I do wish Karma well on their venture. Better availability of free or cheap wi-fi is a good thing

[theEMP]

Karma does look interesting but requires a facebook login to purchase.

[jshannon]

Karma now allowing email login. Don't have to use Facebook for primary user.

[RedHeadTwink]

I'm half tempted to buy one just to earn the free bandwidth, as I have a verizon hotspot myself that's unlimited LTE, but doesn't always work everywhere.

[randamin]

The karma hotspot uses the clear wimax network which has a limited coverage area. For example my city only has coverage in one sector while verizon lte has the whole city.