One of the blogs I read on a frequent basis, SwissMiss, has a sponsor called Karma. Karma provides mobile wifi that is not tied to any specific carrier and does not require a contract. In other words it’s like the various wireless carriers’ MiFi devices, but you don’t have to sign a contract and you pay for the data as you go.  Their website lists the retail price for the device at $149 – they’re running a special for $99 right now – and the data rates are $14 per GB with discounts available for bulk purchases.

A quick search for comparisons of MiFi plans brought me to this page that compares the providers that require contracts – AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile – and the no-contract providers, Virgin and T-Mobile Monthly 4G. Karma seems to stack up well price-wise against all of them in terms of data plans and since there doesn’t seem to be a time limit on using the data this could be very useful for someone like me who might use a ton of data one month, say while on a business trip, and then not a lot of data for a couple of months at a time.

With the low price of the device itself this seems like a no-brainer. I’ll let you know how it goes if I end up testing it, and would love to hear from anyone else who has given it a try.