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Amazon allows free inbound data transfer, but charges for outbound data transfer. I don't understand what that exactly means. Does this means that data you upload to amazon is free, but data you download is not?

starball
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Camilo Sanchez
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1 Answers1

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You have it correct. Data "inbound" to Amazon (that is, packet data that is destined for the Amazon cloud servers; for example, uploads and client requests) are free. Data "outbound" from Amazon is billed (that is, downloads from the cloud and responses to client requests).

Anyway, here is a picture that may help you visualize this

Technet image

Elliott Frisch
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    Thanks Elliot! very useful answer. Hope it helps a lot of other people too. – Camilo Sanchez Feb 05 '14 at 11:07
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    So basically what I understand from this is that it's similar to a "Data Plan" from a phone carrier but they only charge you for the downloaded data or responses to http requests, is that correct? – OzzyTheGiant Jun 19 '19 at 16:19
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    @OzzyTheGiant If we're using a phone analogy, I would say: they only charge you for texts you send, receiving texts is free. – Elliott Frisch Jun 20 '19 at 01:00