The post where I warn you about Skydrive and data caps.
April 27, 2012 1 Comment
So the new Skydrive app is great in that it allows me to use natural means of getting data from my PC into the cloud. Of course, users also know that when you install the Skydrive app, on any PC, it automatically downloads eveything in Skydrive locally to that PC. For the average consumer this might not be a big deal, but I’m a guy who has a great deal of video, photos, documents and music. Plus, I wanted to put Skydrive through its paces so I uploaded several forms of media to my desktop and notebook PCs.
Turns out when you do that you may run into a little AT&T data cap. I received an email yesterday from AT&T stating that I ran against a 150GB data cap. They’re waiving the over charge because it’s my first time, but for every 50GB I go over it’s another $10. Interesting.
I know you’re probably thinking “Wow, you hit that data cap.” But let’s not forget I also use Zune Music Pass, download Games on Demand/XBLA from Xbox 360, Apps from Windows Phone. So again, average consumers might not even deal with this, but you power users might want to be extra careful of how you test this Skydrive app and how you use it on a routine basis, at least until it has more granular controls like Live Mesh does.
About Marques Lyons
This is very useful information, epsecially for most people outside the USA who’ve had data caps on their broadband since broadband was a thing you could buy.
Most people in Australia have a data cap on their home broadband well below 100GB per month (some cheaper ADSL plans are 10GB) and this is why the uptake of cloud storage services here is much slower. I’m lucky, my usage cap is 200GB but yea, when I was reading Paul Thurrott’s article about how Microsoft need to offer the ability to be selective about what gets synced where, I immediately thought of data caps and you’ve confirmed my thought.