Live data from Hacker News

Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

yourkarma.com

11–20 of 124 posts

Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

#11
Are users who share their hotspot indemnified if someone browses something illegal via their hotspot? In light of the recent prosecution of Tor exit-node operators, this service seems like it could create similar risk to the end users who share. (Edit: Ninja addition)

Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

#13
post #2

This looks like another result of CLEAR opening up their network for other vendors to sell their data. Freedompop is doing a similar thing, just without the Karma component to it. Nice to see what happens when a company like CLEAR opens things up -- all sorts of innovation springs.

Except the CLEAR network blows. I used to have a couple retail stores and sold them off because I felt terrible getting so many complaints about service quality and could see the company already declining as key investors were pulling out.

The nodes were initially unsaturated and speedy -- you could often get 15-20mbps on mobile hotspot. Now people are lucky to get 512kbps on their home modems in moderately dense residential areas.

Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

#14
post #8

I prefer the OpenGarden model for this, which is entirely software based, and thus only needs an Android (and hopefully soon iOS) phone to accomplish the exact same. And as speeds and phones get faster and more pervasive, their distribution model is far better than Karma's. (Disclosure, I'm an investor in OpenGarden)

I've been meaning to try OpenGarden and I agree to some extent that OpenGarden might be a better solution. However I think the mobile hotspot such as Karma, Freedom, etc offer the benefit of not chewing through your smartphone's battery and your plan's data limits.

Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

#17
Could it be? Does this mean my wife and I can use our unlocked iPhones with voice-only (t-mobile, maybe?) sim cards and use this Karma thing as our data plan? We're paying US$15/mo each for 200MB data. It's ridiculous. And, we're on HSPA+, not even LTE (AT&T, don't even ask; I can have full bars and it still takes forever to load up text-heavy pages).

Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

#19
post #18

Fon ( http://corp.fon.com/en ) have been doing something similar for several years in Europe (without the karma concept).

Well, it's rather like karma: "As a member of the Fon community, you agree to share a little bit of your WiFi at home, and get free roaming at Fon Spots worldwide in return."
Post reply on HN