Written by Jeff Owen | Jul 11, 2015 4:00:00 AM
Originally posted by Steven van Wel, CEO of Karma, on the Summa website (
http://addsumma.com/carefree-internet-access-and-communications-for-everyone)
The end of an era: the answer for your everlasting WiFi quest is here
Being connected and communicating when and wherever you wish is the newest addiction running through our veins. It is the first thing we do when we wake, and the last thing before we sleep. However, we are constantly on a WiFi treasure hunt during the day while searching for a signal at a hotel, restaurant or coffeeshop. Our decision making nowadays is highly intertwined with the need to connect to the internet so we can communicate with our colleagues, clients, friends and family. We are always searching for the fastest and most reliable signal – sometimes it’s great, other times it’s slow, and too often it doesn’t work at all.
Carefree and flexible New generation startups, such as
Karma and Summa, put customers at the center of the universe. We both want to make sure that you have the freedom to connect when you want to, without any frustration. We believe that flexibility in how, where and when you want to communicate is key and are devoted to lifting all barriers keeping us from that. Whether you want to use voice, chat, video, we want you to do so as at your own pace.
Quest for interconnectivity Of course it all starts with interconnectivity. For many years our everyday quest for interconnectivity has been a hard one. Public WiFi, whether it’s in parks, hotels or subways, is unreliable – sometimes it’s slow, and other times it doesn’t even work. In the US people spend a large part of their day, sometimes 2-3 hours, commuting to and from home. During this time, you want to be connected, or at least have control over whether you are or aren’t connected. You may work, read on your smartphone, scroll through your twitter feed, or watch a movie on your tablet. Wouldn’t it be great if you could do all of this without signing in or getting kicked off the WiFi network? Enter Karma.
Bring Your Own WiFi At Karma, we empower you to bring your own WiFi so you don’t have to rely on anyone else. Long gone are the days filled with worry about whether you will be able to get online. We believe that WiFi is personal and the connection behind it should be accessible for everybody. With Karma, your connection is available to the people around. We never understood why 5 people in the same room each have their own fenced in internet connection. You should be able to share your connection with others. At Karma we deliver the service and hardware that makes this possible. If somebody in the room has a Karma, the people around you can connect to that network but use their own data – we separate the data so it’s tied to the person and not the device. With Karma, you pay as you go for data which never expire. This allows you to have full control over your connection, and what you spend on it.
Near future: more freedom At Karma we see a future where the difference between mobile internet and internet at home disappears. You will just have one internet provider for everything. For example, according to the Internet of Things we will have more and more devices that are able to connect to the internet. Wouldn’t it be great if you have one WiFi hub for all your devices both at home, and on the go?
In the near future every device will be able to connect to the Karma-router. The tiring search for a decent WiFi connection will no longer be one of your biggest concerns. You will just be connected with the freedom to turn on and off when you wish. Overall, you will choose which device you would like to use, how, when and where you would like to communicate. Never have we been so social and carefree by all the technological possibilities for communications, leaving the treasure hunt a solely Easter-affair.
About Steven van Wel, CEO of Karma Steven van Wel is the Co-Founder/CEO of Karma. Born in The Netherlands, he started his first company when he was 19 years old. He is the co-author of the book Elastic Beanstalk, published by O’Reilly in 2011, and previously founded Marvia (acquired by PostNL). He is currently based in New York, where Karma was launched while in the TechStars NYC 2012 program. Karma is the easiest way to get online. By unlocking Wi-Fi we will make it possible for everyone to bring their own bandwidth, anywhere in the world. Today, our Social Bandwidth Wi-Fi hotspot brings frictionless Wi-Fi sharing to the masses. It’s Wi-Fi for everyone to use.