I love cloud! And No, I am not a marketer – I am a technologist and I love cloud after minus-ing the marketing mumbo-jumbo/hype. And i would like cloud to emerge victorious. But i see a road block and that’s a problem. And…..I like pointing at problems (Oops!) I like coming up with creative solutions to problems.

So, in this post, I am going to talk about a problem Errrr, probable solution(s) to a potential problem that can adversely affect our lifestyle. To be specific, it can drastically increase the money we pay for Internet in future. And with growing cloud computing adoption, we will consume more bandwidth in future since we will have LOT of data on cloud. The more the data transfer between cloud and our device – the more will be the bandwidth usage.

Now, Today, it’s not a problem. At least not in USA – as we can live with “LIMITED” mobile (/Wireless cellular things like 4G, 3G, etc) data plans  combined with “UNLIMITED” Home data plans (Wired one’s – yes, the Internet made up of the fiber cables). So in future, “IF” we still have UNLIMITED home data plans around – this battle may fortunately never happen.

Wait…But think what if there will be no UNLIMITED plan?

I know it’s scary. So year by year, The internet usage would start doubling and Limit (cap) on data usage would be halved.

Wait..That’s sounds like an Inverse Moore’s law!

And what if the Home data plans would look like: $2 for every GB. At my current usage  – I would be paying little less than 80 dollars. And I can’t imagine my data usage if all my data is on cloud.  What if I do not have a local storage and instead, I’ll have all my data on some “cloud storage”. I can imagine a bill of $200 per month. And that’s a problem? You think so too?

No!? Unrealistic?! Home data plans cannot be capped?! Here’s the article: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/17/technology/netflix_canada/index.htm that talks about the challenge that Netflix faced in Canada because of “Capped Home data plans”. In fact, Netflix had to offer customization option in video quality that could help Canadian customers “save” on data usage. Any-who- if Home data plans were capped in Canada – I can say, this may happen in USA and other countries too.

And still if you think that capped home data plans are not a possibility. I would like to point out that, not long ago, we had UNLIMITED data plans through wireless cellular services and Now, we do not have it. (And I know – Sprint offers unlimited data plans. But could that not change too?)

So what can we do about it?

– Spread the word. Prepare yourselves for the battle! Contact Imp. People. Contact Gov. etc, etc, etc. ( Ok, I tweeted, Now what?! Any probable solution? )

Ideally, the data should not be capped. (And if it does happen – We can run an occupy Comcast campaign! Ok – sorry. could not resist it!)

realistically, How about a reasonable capped home data plan? What’s reasonable – Well, I mean I do not like 2 GB and 5 GB limits. That’s way too small. On the other hand a capped data plan of 1 TB is too high. It’s virtually unlimited. How about something in between which is reasonable for both – we THE CLOUD USERS and the Internet providers (ISP’s)? That is what I think – you may have different perspective on it – if you do, go ahead and post your views as comments.