Karma, the startup that offers pay-as-you-go mobile data through a portable Wi-Fi hotspot, will catch up with the 4G world next year by moving to LTE.
Karma sells a hockey-puck-like hotspot that gets cellular data over the former Clearwire WiMax network and delivers it to users via Wi-Fi. Karma customers pay for data by the gigabyte, with no contract, and can earn more bytes by letting other people nearby share the hotspot.
In the first half of next year, the company will start selling a new hotspot that uses Sprint's LTE network for its cellular link. Sprint acquired Clearwire earlier this year and is well along in a transition from WiMax to its LTE network, which covers more people and offers higher average speeds than the WiMax system.
The Karma LTE hotspot will work on all of Sprint's LTE frequencies, including former Clearwire spectrum that Sprint says will offer peak speeds of 60Mbps or more. The device will also be equipped with IEEE 802.11ac, the latest and fastest version of Wi-Fi, an upgrade from the 802.11n technology used in the current hotspot. Sprint says its LTE network will cover about 250 million U.S. residents by the middle of next year.
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