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Karma Go


MarshieZ

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I just switched my Go to Neverstop for the next month, as I'll be at my parents' for multiple weekends. If you want a review of the service/experience, skip the next two paragraphs...

 

At my parents', a couple miles outside a town of 10,000 that can get 300M TWC, it's your choice of wireless provider for internet...and none of them are particularly good. Their choice is (and has been for awhile) residential LTE at 4M down, 1M up for $50/mo, unlimited, from a local provider. Said local provider hands out 4G wireless routers with 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11n and an LTE modem that supports band 12...with a couple 5db antennas that take RSSI down to the high -50s, so we're talking about something that's marketed as home broadband here. That company has 5x5 of Band 17 that all their residential customers use; mobile customers on the same provider are limited to HSPA+ last I heard in order to keep the LTE clear for fixed use.

 

All that to say that my hotspot likely has more capacity that it's pulling from than my parents' residential connection...particularly since there's a B41 cell site downtown (I can't reach it out here, but that takes the load off B25/B26).

 

==

 

I've had Karma for on the order of two years, and the Go for on the order of four months, so I know the drill as far as getting connected etc. goes: connect to the network, log in if your MAC isn't remembered on the device, see the splash page showing how much data you have left (I have just over 20GB...I've gotten, and used, 5GB from referrals and 1GB came with the device). In this case, I logged in and then looked for an option to switch to Neverstop...and was told to do it from the app.

 

So I opened the app on my 5X, updated my billing info (the card I used to buy my 20GB of data expired a bit ago), and told it to switch my account to Neverstop. I was asked to confirm the $50 charge, then emailed a payment confirmation. The final screen on my phone for the process said that the month of service would start the next time I logged into my hotspot.

 

So I connected, logged in (pretty sure I was asked to log in even though that particular decide was authed to the network before)...and presented with a screen telling me I was almost ready to use Neverstop. Turns out, the device needs a firmware update (automated reboot required) to get Neverstop going. I let the update load...the ETA was 5-10 minutes and the actual time was within that range. The service helpfully told me I'd get an email when the device was ready to go, and I got an email at the end of the process as promised.

 

At that point, I was forced to log in again (I'm guessing the reflash cleared the MAC table, partially to avoid multiple devices immediately exceeding the three simultaneous device limit)...and was good to go from there on out. The splash screen said I had Neverstop at 5 Mbps;sounds like they'll have higher speed tiers or higher simultaneous device counts as extra-charge options in the future. Speeds on speedtest.net were within a few hundred kbps of 5 Mbps in both directions (yes, 5 Mbps symmetric unlimited LTE for $50/mo!), with uploads being closer to 5M than downloads. Not bad at all considering that's about what I can get on my 5X...or the Go when I'm paying per GB...at this location.

 

I have yet to test how simultaneous connections to the hotspot from different client devices fare; I'd expect the 5 Mbps to be shared between devices, but who knows...maybe the service would allow 15M down spread across three devices if the network can handle it. Will post back here when I test that (shortly!).

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I just switched my Go to Neverstop for the next month, as I'll be at my parents' for multiple weekends. If you want a review of the service/experience, skip the next two paragraphs...

 

At my parents', a couple miles outside a town of 10,000 that can get 300M TWC, it's your choice of wireless provider for internet...and none of them are particularly good. Their choice is (and has been for awhile) residential LTE at 4M down, 1M up for $50/mo, unlimited, from a local provider. Said local provider hands out 4G wireless routers with 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11n and an LTE modem that supports band 12...with a couple 5db antennas that take RSSI down to the high -50s, so we're talking about something that's marketed as home broadband here. That company has 5x5 of Band 17 that all their residential customers use; mobile customers on the same provider are limited to HSPA+ last I heard in order to keep the LTE clear for fixed use.

 

All that to say that my hotspot likely has more capacity that it's pulling from than my parents' residential connection...particularly since there's a B41 cell site downtown (I can't reach it out here, but that takes the load off B25/B26).

 

==

 

I've had Karma for on the order of two years, and the Go for on the order of four months, so I know the drill as far as getting connected etc. goes: connect to the network, log in if your MAC isn't remembered on the device, see the splash page showing how much data you have left (I have just over 20GB...I've gotten, and used, 5GB from referrals and 1GB came with the device). In this case, I logged in and then looked for an option to switch to Neverstop...and was told to do it from the app.

 

So I opened the app on my 5X, updated my billing info (the card I used to buy my 20GB of data expired a bit ago), and told it to switch my account to Neverstop. I was asked to confirm the $50 charge, then emailed a payment confirmation. The final screen on my phone for the process said that the month of service would start the next time I logged into my hotspot.

 

So I connected, logged in (pretty sure I was asked to log in even though that particular decide was authed to the network before)...and presented with a screen telling me I was almost ready to use Neverstop. Turns out, the device needs a firmware update (automated reboot required) to get Neverstop going. I let the update load...the ETA was 5-10 minutes and the actual time was within that range. The service helpfully told me I'd get an email when the device was ready to go, and I got an email at the end of the process as promised.

 

At that point, I was forced to log in again (I'm guessing the reflash cleared the MAC table, partially to avoid multiple devices immediately exceeding the three simultaneous device limit)...and was good to go from there on out. The splash screen said I had Neverstop at 5 Mbps;sounds like they'll have higher speed tiers or higher simultaneous device counts as extra-charge options in the future. Speeds on speedtest.net were within a few hundred kbps of 5 Mbps in both directions (yes, 5 Mbps symmetric unlimited LTE for $50/mo!), with uploads being closer to 5M than downloads. Not bad at all considering that's about what I can get on my 5X...or the Go when I'm paying per GB...at this location.

 

I have yet to test how simultaneous connections to the hotspot from different client devices fare; I'd expect the 5 Mbps to be shared between devices, but who knows...maybe the service would allow 15M down spread across three devices if the network can handle it. Will post back here when I test that (shortly!).

 

Great review! I'm very happy to hear that the advertised speed is actually what you're getting. Where you getting a full, 3 bar signal? 

 

Looking forward to the rest of the test!

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Does the Karma GO remember your devices or will you have to keep signing on (which is good for sharing)

 

I'm almost positive you'll have to sign-in/log-in every time. But maybe I'm wrong, I don't really pay attention if I have to sign on everytime or not.

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Please post the fcc id so I can look it up. Thanks.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

Where you able to find anything through the FCC for the antenna? 

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Great review! I'm very happy to hear that the advertised speed is actually what you're getting. Where you getting a full, 3 bar signal? 

 

Looking forward to the rest of the test!

 

All three, but I think the threshold for three signal circles is relatively low. Maybe three or four bars on my N5X. And the hotspot doesn't seem to be a particularly amazing performer RF wise. Decent, but not amazing.

 

Also, outside the house I'm getting 15-16M down, 7M up so the tower isn't capacity-constrained. Though it's not quite the same as the phenomenal throughput I get on the B41+CA tower in town; measured 88M down, 12M up there earlier tonight. Not with the Go though...even if it wasn't throttled to 5M for the time being it doesn't support CA. Hopefully they're building another hotspot that does.

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I'm almost positive you'll have to sign-in/log-in every time. But maybe I'm wrong, I don't really pay attention if I have to sign on everytime or not.

 

Not actually the case. My laptop is paired up with the hotspot and not only doesn't require re-logging, but also skips the "hang on, Internet magic is happening" screen on-WiFi-connect.

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Short update, its been a few days with NeverStop now and it's Awesome!

 

Loving my speeds, Pretty much what I got with Clearwire!

 

17cae4ee95.jpg

 

Sprint's Spark is pretty good for low latency too, played a few games (CSGO) and Played through competitive without any lag or studdering

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Where you able to find anything through the FCC for the antenna?

The results aren't pretty. Antenna gain is anywhere from -2 to -5 dBi, which doesn't help performance. I'll look more to see what else I can dig up later today.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

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The results aren't pretty. Antenna gain is turned down anywhere from 2-5 dBi...

 

Negative, Josh, not positive.  Negative.

 

AJ

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Not actually the case. My laptop is paired up with the hotspot and not only doesn't require re-logging, but also skips the "hang on, Internet magic is happening" screen on-WiFi-connect.

 

Actually now that you say that, you're right. I don't have to log in with my laptop or tablet ever, just after I changed the SSID name for the Wi-Fi name on it.

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The results aren't pretty. Antenna gain is anywhere from -2 to -5 dBi, which doesn't help performance. I'll look more to see what else I can dig up later today.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

Really?? I'm honestly quite surprised. It takes a lot for mine to even show only 2 circles, let alone drop to 3G. 

 

Is there another device we can compare the numbers with to see how it compares? 

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Really?? I'm honestly quite surprised. It takes a lot for mine to even show only 2 circles, let alone drop to 3G.

 

Is there another device we can compare the numbers with to see how it compares?

Not really. I guess the biggest question is, which LTE band are you on most of the time? The antenna gain for Band 41 is -2dBi, Band 25 is -5dBi.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

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Not really. I guess the biggest question is, which LTE band are you on most of the time? The antenna gain for Band 41 is -2dBi, Band 25 is -5dBi.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

Actually probably both. The one tower I frequently use it on is a B25/B26 only and am usually parked on B25. The other is a full NV build tower with a second B41 carrier, and am 99% of the time on B41. The other rare 1% is on B26.

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Actually probably both. The one tower I frequently use it on is a B25/B26 only and am usually parked on B25. The other is a full NV build tower with a second B41 carrier, and am 99% of the time on B41. The other rare 1% is on B26.

Well, and there have been many times devices perform better or worse than what was in the FCC docs, so ymmv.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

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Well, and there have been many times devices perform better or worse than what was in the FCC docs, so ymmv.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

Well since you went through the effort of finding the information, I'll include it in the OP. Do you have the gain for B26? And any other key findings that you found interesting that you'd like me to include?

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Well since you went through the effort of finding the information, I'll include it in the OP. Do you have the gain for B26? And any other key findings that you found interesting that you'd like me to include?

I'll email you on that later.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

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I'll email you on that later.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

Sounds good, no rush.  :2tu:

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I really like how this Karma service sounds, especially because of their affordable speed-capped pricing model I'm a huge supporter of. I think this is the direction full voice and data services ought to go in, though I personally would like to see the speed options be a bit higher, like around 15mbps. If it were that around $60 monthly, I might consider it.

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I am in the process of revising the original post... adding some more information to it and cleaning it up a bit.

 

Also wanted to make a mention the Karma is running a special until midnight Tuesday 12/1. You can get $50 off and free shipping! 

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I am in the process of revising the original post... adding some more information to it and cleaning it up a bit.

 

Also wanted to make a mention the Karma is running a special until midnight Tuesday 12/1. You can get $50 off and free shipping!

How much is regular price on it?

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

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How much is regular price on it?

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

It is typically $149. So with the current sale and my referral code I can give you, it will bring it down to $89!

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It is typically $149. So with the current sale and my referral code I can give you, it will bring it down to $89!

I wish I had the money for it, and Sprint LTE use it on.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

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