Bad Karma: WISP Pares Back Its Monthly 4G Hotspot Plan, Again

Robotech_Master writes: The ongoing saga of the Neverstop plan shows that Karma Wireless just can't seem to catch a break as far as high-bandwidth plans are concerned. After starting out with a straight pay-per-bandwidth plan, "Refuel," for its $150 wireless hotspot, Karma thought it would innovate with a throttled-but-otherwise-unlimited 4G plan, "Neverstop." However, it soon discovered that users were taking it at its word and using up considerably more bandwidth than Karma expected or could afford. After experimenting with further throttling, Karma subsequently revamped the plan into a $50 per month, 15 GB plan that throttled to dialup speed after it ran out. However, now it turns out even that plan was too optimistic, and Karma has opted to dump the Neverstop plan altogether in favor of tiered monthly plan called Pulse —whose bandwidth costs significantly more. ($40/mo for 5 GB, $75 for 10 GB, $140 for 20 GB.) Karma's "unlimited" users weren't pleased the first time the plan changed, and now they're practically through the roof.

Comments

Unhappy customers...

[Richard_at_work]

Karma's "unlimited" users weren't pleased the first time the plan changed, and now they're practically through the roof.

If a company can't afford to deliver the product as sold, and they aren't bound to a contract to deliver that product as sold for more than one billing period, then what do these users think is going to happen - Karma Wireless is going to continue to provide a loss making service until the company goes under with massive debts?

Karma Wireless tried something, it failed (mainly because they screwed up forecasting costs) and now they are moving on.

Re:Unhappy customers...

[Anonymous Coward]

The calculations in finance can be perfect - it's where the numbers came from.

For example, my county was convinced by a professional sports team to foot the bill to build a new stadium. They provided all these projections and estimations of all the extra tax revenue the county will make and projections of the benefits to our economy.

All pie in the sky. And no one bothered to look to see that every city and county that paid for a sports stadium has gotten screwed.

Projections are a fancy way of saying "predicting the future."

So, replace "projections" with "predicting the future" and things sound real kooky - like late night psychic ads. Now, bear in mind, I am strictly speaking of financial issues and not science or engineering matters.

I brought this up to an engineer regarding revenue projections once and he replied. "They got the number from somewhere." Yeah, out of their ass. All the other calculations looked awesome and were perfect of course - thanks to Excel. Spreadsheets are a great way to fool people with real fancy looking numbers and calculations.

Perfect calculations are easy in this day and age, but the premise still has to be correct. And these tools can make the unreasonable look reasonable to those who don't ask hard and seemingly stupid questions.

Wrong technology

[gsslay]

The obvious lesson here would be that 4G is really not the technology you want to be using for downloading +15GB/month of data. Currently it is simply incapable of supporting that, so demand has to be throttled one way or another. Cost is as good as any.

If you have need for that kind of bandwidth on the go, look elsewhere or expect to pay for it.

Re:Wrong technology

[Anonymous Coward]

wireless is somewhat like the old layer 1 and 2 switches in that if one user's netflix stream is broadcasting then everyone else's traffic has to wait. granted the antenna does it very fast but too many people using high bandwidth data will slow the network to a crawl because the one antenna will have to alternate between transmitting everyone else's content and receiving data from end user devices. and that's not even going into the fact that other devices from other carriers on neighboring frequencies are also doing the same thing and everyone is always having to filter out unwanted traffic. I live close to a major NYC traffic artery and every night at rush hour my AT&T service is pretty much useless because everyone is driving home and streaming their music. Wireless is not like switched network traffic where the data can be switched to the right wire and not interfere with anyone else's data

Re:Wrong technology

[Mr. Slippery]

The obvious lesson here would be that 4G is really not the technology you want to be using for downloading +15GB/month of data.

I used to have Sprint's WiMax 4G service as my home ISP, same service as Clear/Clearwire but under a different branding. Downloaded on the order of 90GB some months. Worked fine for several years, other than that I was on the very edge of the service area and occasionally dropped signal in bad weather.

4G can get bits to homes. If an ISP sets out to do that and fails because it oversells, it's not a technical problem, it's poor planning and people have a right to be pissed about that.

Re:POT (Personal Open Terminal) lowers isolation

[malditaenvidia]

TimeCube, is that you?

Operating at a loss, or not high enough profits.

[Lumpy]

Honestly you really need to read closer. IS it really they can't afford it or they can't afford it after thinking they need to increase profits by 25%. You really cant believe anything out of the mouths of the executives because they believe they are entitled to record profits and will word it as they are losing money..... losing imaginary money they want.

underpriced

[Spazmania]

Back when I worked for an ISP my boss had a line he used to describe some of the competitors: "It takes no particular talent to sell a dollar for fifty cents."

250GB for $48 per month.

[pcjunky]

I run a WISP in a heavily competitive area with both CenturyLink and Comcast as competitors. We sell a residential service that averages 25Mbps down and 9 up. 250GB per month for $48/per month. We use the cheapest radios available, Ubiquiti.

I don't understand a WISP who can't make money at a $50/month and 15GB limit plan.