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One service the usage cap-happy broadband industry will be certain to threaten is online file backup. Consumers who don’t know any better can easily configure software to back up entire hard drives to a remote hard drive, blowing through an online usage allowance in a matter of days. Even usage allowances as large as Comcast’s 250GB per month are no match for today’s super-sized hard drives.
So it comes with a bit of irony that Comcast has quietly launched its new Secure Backup & Share service, “powered by” Mozy.
Every Comcast broadband customer will soon be pelted with promotions for the new free add-on, which will initially provide 2GB of storage space. The free version is enough to backup small collections of music, photos, and documents, and probably won’t hurt your allowance too much. But Mozy gets to up-sell customers to their much-larger capacity plans right from the home page. A year’s worth of 50GB of storage costs $50. Get 200GB of storage space for $100 a year.
Exceeding 250GB of usage per month, with or without the service, will potentially get you a warning letter and then an account suspension.
Bonus points to you if you can find the 250GB usage limit disclosed on the home page for the service.
For providers who try for far lower usage allowances, or charge up to $2 per gigabyte after exceeding them, an online file backup service could make your provider’s day once they send you the bill.
Other stories of interest:
- New Zealand ISP Exempts YouTube From Usage Allowance Annoyance Until January 2010
- One Year After Imposing 250GB Cap, Comcast Customers Still In The Dark About Their Usage
- Court Hands Victory to Comcast: Throws Out 30% Cap On Market Share Inviting Buying Spree At Consumers’ Expense
- Limbo Dance Redux: Bell Canada Lowers Usage Allowances on Customers, But Sells Usage Insurance for “Peace of Mind”
- Shaw Introduces 100 Mbps “Nitro” Broadband in Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton for $149/Month (With 400GB Allowance)
Look at these executive salaries at Comcast in 2008 http://www.companypay.com/executive/compensation/comcast-corp.asp?yr=2008 I’m sure the Comcast shill commenter will pull the “great deal!” card again
Yikes, looks like those exec’s are going to the poor house for sure!!
I just called Comcast last night and asked about their service and the usage cap and I was told that the backup service does not count against their usage cap. I will double check this with another call today.
I also wonder, then, if they are being anti-competitive. They essentially limit large backup (~200GB) to use their service or risk going over the usage cap. What if I sign up with Moxy directly; will that apply to the usage cap? How about a competitive service such as Carbonite or the new favorite Dropbox?
I see legal issues galore over the way this service is offered. For instance, I am not interested in file sharing much; for that I use either Google Documents or for larger things, my 2GB DropBox account (which maybe I will expand as I fill it). If my drive crashes, and I use a non-Comcast backup service, it is not even possible to do a restore unless I do it over several months [and that may not be possible with some providers which maintain a backup for 30 days] or go over the 250GB limit and get my threat email from Comcast. These are all issues I intend to get answered from Comcast before long, if I can ever get a knowledgeable person online.