This has just occured to me, but does not affect me as I am on Sky Unlimited.

If you are on an ISP that does not give you unlimited downloads, IOS 5 is probably going to result in you going over your allowance very quickly!!

In the last couple of days we will have downloaded a 700mb file to each IOS device we have and then more than likely gone for this new cloud back up option. Well my back up has already resulted in me reaching my 5gb icloud allowance, which means I have sent 5gb of data over my internet connection (plus 2 x 700mb for ipod and ipad and 300mb for Apple TV).

I may have even run the icloud back up twice whilst testing it out. Plus it apparently does it everytime you plug your device in to charge.

If people have as much on their ipads and iphones as I do, they are very soon going to be receiving letters or e-mails from their ISPs demanding payment for extra gigabytes of usage. Some ISPs will even automatically upgrade you to the unlimited tarrif without telling you but still charge you the higher monthly amount. They don't have to tell you as it's written in their T&Cs that they will do it if they need to and you have signed a contract to agree to it.

I shall probably now be assesing my icloud back up process and see if I want to do it every time I charge my devices. Or if I want to manually do a backup once a month or so.

Has anyone already had an e-mail from their ISPs saying they have exceeded their allowance yet? I was going to post this in the broadband section too, but apparently you aren't allowed to post multiple threads on the same topic.

Only if it's been more than 24 hours since the last backup, and you have automatic backup turned on, and only when the device is locked and not in use.


They're delta backups, so after the initial backup is complete it will only be transmitting data that is new or has changed since the last backup. As above, it won't backup more often than once every 24 hours.

You're right that people on capped internet connections need to be careful, but you're rather over dramatising it. An iOS 5 device with iCould backup turned on won't sit around munching your internet connection 24/7.

I would hope you don't have to charge your ipad more than once every 24 hours.

If it's delta back ups (like the futrue updates are reported to be) then at least the usage won't be as bad as I thought. Unless you take lots of photos and haven't thought about how it will affect your backup to the cloud.

The trouble is that most people wont even consider how it works and will just use it and potentially rack up charges they did not expect. I don't think it will be long before we start to see the first news reports about such people getting charged because their children used their iphones so much and it backed up every time they plugged (per 24 hours) it to charge.

If you live in a house with four of you (for example) each with an idevice that you take pictures on on a regular basis then this would be a scenario where you could easily exceed your limites very quickly (although it could be argued that if you live in a hosue with four iphones then you should be able to afford to pay for unlimited internet). Without carefully considering the icloud back up, I still can see this being an issue that will come to light soon.

Usually ISPs only include a download limit and not an upload limit so you should be fine.

Also how on earth are you using so much? my iPad and iPhone are using 600MB in total out of my available 25GB.

I would have a look Settings - iCloud - Storage & Backup - Manage Storage and check what is using it.