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Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot

yourkarma.com

21–30 of 124 posts

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

#21
post #9

Are multiple devices connected to the same hotspot able to communicate? I don't want any random person in the coffeeshop to be able to access my machine.

Provided the random person in the coffeeshop has a Karma account, then they would be able to use the same hotspot. I believe the product information states that up to 8 devices can be connected to your hotspot.

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

#22
I love the concept.

One important part that should be added though (I couldn't tell from the website if they already do something like this):

When using it to share your personal internet connection, guest wifi connections should have all their internet traffic proxied/vpn'ed through the service's own internet connection. That way, the service itself keeps track of who was connected when, and if anything illicit happens through the connection they can follow up on the account that was used. Doing so would take away the largest concern I currently have with opening up my home internet connection. I'm happy to share the bandwidth I'm not using, but I don't want my name tied to that traffic.

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

#23
post #21
post #9

Are multiple devices connected to the same hotspot able to communicate? I don't want any random person in the coffeeshop to be able to access my machine.

Provided the random person in the coffeeshop has a Karma account, then they would be able to use the same hotspot. I believe the product information states that up to 8 devices can be connected to your hotspot.

I think the question is whether two devices connected to the same hotspot can send packets to each other. Ideally, you want to isolate them as much as possible, letting them connect only to the Internet.

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

#25

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).

Do you talk a lot? T-Mobile has an unlimited data, unlimited text, 100 minute no-contract plan for $30/month. I'm using it with my Nexus 4. Additional talk time is $0.10/minute.

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

#26

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).

Well, be sure to check the coverage map, because there are some large cities with no coverage (like San Diego).

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

#28

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).

I don't know about T-Mobile, but I think AT&T and Verizon both require smartphones to have a data plan, and they can detect if you have a smartphone and force you to have a data plan because of that.

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

#29
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."

Not exactly because you don't have the ratio idea where you have to share XXX MB with someone before having YYY MB for yourself.

In France Free is a well-known ISP offering this kind of feature with its ADSL box. You open your WI-FI to others and then you have access to every other WIFI shared by users from this ISP.

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

#30

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).

Do you have internet at home? Do you have a wireless router? If you can use karma, why don't you just set up your own home wifi?
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