Karma 4G Hotspot Is For Sharing
Karma 4G Hotspot | Photo courtesy Karma
The Karma hotspot lives up to its name and allows you to actually earn data by sharing your hotspot with others. Initially it ran off Clearwire’s 4G WiMax network, but now it’s Sprint. It works as a pay-as-you-go hotspot, but you can rack up free mobile data quickly, especially if you use it in crowded areas.
With each new person to use your hotspot, you earn 100MB. That’s pretty good, considering the average smart-phone user consumes about 220MB per month. That means if at least three new people connect to your hotspot, you potentially could get a free month’s worth of data. Otherwise, you’ll pay $14 per 1GB of data. The hotspot itself costs $99 with 1GB of data, and you can pay extra for more: $28 for 2GB; $50 for 5GB; or $180 for 20GB (in addition to the $99 for the device). Your data never expires, whether you bought it or earned it.
You never will pay for any people to connect to your hotspot, as they always will pay their own way. You’ll never pay a subscription fee, since it’s pay-as-you-go, and you always can cancel your account. The hotspot will last you about six to eight hours on battery power and can connect up to eight devices simultaneously. The average speed you’ll see is about 3-6 Mbps when downloading, and 1.5 Mbps when uploading. Karma is similar to FreedomPop, another startup hoping to reshape the mobile industry with free mobile service and offering everything from voice to texting. But I think the simplicity of Karma’s model is more appealing to most consumers.
Ask A CPA | Alison Young photo
This is a good concept and would make me want to leave my hotspot on all the time to collect more users/data, but I have concerns about how secure it is with other people connecting to my network. But at least with this hotspot you can feel good about sharing something and not being selfish with your data access.
You can find your own Karma at yourkarma.com or Amazon.com.
Click Chick’s Mobile App of the Week: Ask A CPA
In the midst of tax season, an app you should have on your phone is Ask A CPA. It answers tax and accounting questions that are probably spinning through your head this time of year.
You can search for an answer to your question within set categories, or if you can’t find the answer, enter your custom question, which will be sent directly to a local CPA who will answer it for free within 24 hours. I’ve already learned many new things about taxes that I never would have thought of just by browsing through the questions people already have asked.
Ask A CPA can work for either the average consumer like me or a small-business owner. New questions and answers are added every day to this app without the need for a software update. Best of all, it’s free and available for your iOS or Android device.
clickchick@outlook.com
