Fortunately, my ISP doesn’t cap usage other than by available bandwidth. More often now, we are seeing internet service providers cap transfers to several gigabytes each month. Their argument is usually that users are hogging the available bandwidth on their network.

Will this sound the death knell for online backup services? Backup services like Carbonite and Mozy allow users to safely backup their data online in case something happens to their PC and local backups. (no, online backups are NOT a replacement for local backups, just a complement)  While these caps may or may not limit the transmission of data, used in backing up files, they certainly would apply to the restoration of files from an online backup provider.

If you are on an ISP that implements these caps and your PC dies in the first week of the month, you may reach your transfer cap before the month is half over. Imagine being halfway through your restore when you reach your limit, then needing to decide if you want to wait another two weeks to get the rest, or pay for the next tier from your ISP…