ITWire

The new service will send text alerts to Optus’ customers on most post-paid mobile plans when they reach 50 per cent, 85 per cent and 100 per cent of their voice, text and data allowance.

Optus Managing Director of Customer, Vicki Brady, said customers would have greater transparency, with the alerts keeping them up to date with their monthly spend.

“We understand our customers can get frustrated when they don’t know how much data or included value they’ve used and incur extra charges.

“By keeping our customers informed of their usage, along with charges incurred outside their mobile plan, we’re offering them more convenient and straightforward tools to help them control their mobile bills.”

Today’s announcement by Optus says that for the company’s customers who find they’re coming close to their monthly plan limit, ‘Top Ups' will soon be on offer to them via SMS, providing them with additional included value and data to tide them over to the next billing period.

Brady said that $5 and $10 included value ‘Top Ups’ would provide customers with $40 and $100 of additional included value for standard national voice calls and texts respectively.

For customers looking to top up their data allowance by 100MB, 500MB or 1GB, packs for $2, $5 and $10 respectively can be purchased when they are available – “in the near future,” Brady says.

Optus will also send post-paid mobile customers an alert every time they spend $100 incrementally on services which aren’t included in their cap, such as international calls or premium SMS.

Alerts aren’t confined to Optus customers locally in Australia. The carrier says that post-paid customers travelling overseas are generally notified within approximately one hour of reaching their international data roaming usage thresholds.

Brady says that customers are advised via SMS they are accessing international roaming and charges can build up quickly, and that those customers who continue to use roaming data are notified at regular intervals of their usage.

Optus has also introduced Bridge DataRoam Unlimited packs for its customers travelling in the Asia Pacific region to control their spending – a “first-of-its kind offer for Australians” Brady says, providing unlimited data roaming in selected destinations.