Gotta love Telstra when they send you an email to let you know that you’ve used half of your monthly Internet allowance already and you might want to invoke one of your 3 free top ups for the year before it runs out completely, because if you do use what’s left then your Internet speed will be reduced until the new monthly billing cycle begins. They then show you how much longer you have to wait until the new billing cycle begins, which in this case is going to be tomorrow… Pretty sure I’m not going to use the same amount of data that took my entire family 28 days to use in the space of less than a day. Has anyone else had a useless and pointless warning message from anywhere lately?
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all the time…wording is - you have used half of your allowance data, you can download more GB by pressing arrow.
Ive got 15GB, only use about 5-8GB, but they still send the message even if its the day before its due to renew.
While I understand how so many feel these warnings are a bother especially a day before the end of the cycle, imagine how you might feel if you had malware or a runaway or unintended app that was pulling in data behind your back and it cost you money.
I have a rellie who rarely uses any data but got a ‘nuisance message’ about 50% a few days before the end of cycle, and then another at 70% and another at 90% only hours apart, and it turned out she had an app running that was happily and continuously using data. She turned it off 
These warnings are a feature that you cannot win with either way, but a nice treatise from the TIO is here.
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I really don’t have a problem with it. I would rather be warned than find I have been slowed down when I don’t want to be. I have just transferred to the NBN and although we don’t use the internet any differently, we do find that we seem to be chewing through the Mbs rather faster than before. Telstra have an excellent Usage read-out that can be accessed in a couple of clicks, and I do, at the moment, use that. However I am still happy that Telstra warn me when I am close to 50%, and also that it then provides more alerts as I get towards my limit.
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My understanding is that all providers are required to provide those warnings by law. It was designed to prevent people going way over their limits without knowing. Much better to have ones that you can ignore that using up data wicket than you realise and ending up with a huge bill.
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I get them quite often, and when they come it is always at the near end of the billing cycle. They don’t bother me though, and in fact could prove to be useful. If for example I got a message only one or two weeks into the billing cycle notifying that I have used 80% of my data limit I would immediately know something was wrong. I very rarely use my mobile to access the internet so only have a small download limit. If it suddenly shot up it could be an indication that my phone has been hacked.
Or an app was let out of the paddock by mistake or because you forgot to rein it after using it, but still it is a useful indicator no matter whether it is an innocent oversight or a dangerous situation.
Absolutely. I have most of the apps turned off on my phone. I also keep location turned off, and mobile data turned off. Only turn them on on an as needs basis. When I want to access anything from the internet from my phone while at home I use wifi connectivity. That way if I ever do want to download something, I don’t cop the cost of if I was to do via mobile data. So 90% of the time my phone only gets used for making and receiving calls and texts.
For Andriod phones, one can also change settings for apps so they only manually update (require your permission to update), so you can wait until connected to wifi before updating rather than them automatically updating when using data, you can also optimise apps, remove apps not regularly used and change permissions so spps behave better.
Back in the bad old days of small quotas these emails were really handy to trigger the “start downloading the Internet” phase of the month … even back with modest ADSL/2 speeds it was fairly easy to download 50+Gb in a day under test conditions and a good percentage of that in realistic conditions …
I know the intent of the ISP is to try to upsell - but for many I know it was the trigger to use it up …
I’d rather get these emails than run out of data. It takes a few seconds to deal with the unwanted email.
Not sending the emails at some pre-determined point in your billing cycle may cause some problems and what suits one person may not suit another.
I get them as text messages on my phone when I occasionally use it for internet access, tethered to my laptop. They are followed by a statement that the information may be 48 hours old (helpful?), and they tend to arrive at night. I’ve even been woken up by one at around 3am on a couple of occasions. Not very impressed.
@warwick I too would be annoyed by system messages during the middle of the night!
If you have a modern phone, you should be able to enable the “Do Not Disturb” settings so that you don’t get interrupted by these or other messages.
It is fairly straightforward on an iPhone and understand that it is similar on Android (but haven’t tried).
Yes I have an iPhone, but don’t use that feature in case something important comes through, such as from a family member. There never has, but I prefer to keep that option open. The only times I have been disturbed were by these messages, and they stopped coming in at night after I used an old fashioned technique to solve the problem. I rang them and told them - bluntly.
Yes, I’ve been caught with this con too. I think the 50% warning is good, as others have pointed out. But the 90% etc warnings a couple of days before your anniversary is a bit rough. I have a monthly warning set up in my Outlook Calendar showing the rollover date. And my phone has an app which shows me the usage of both the mobile phone and the ADSL allowance. So if I think I need a top-up I invoke it about the middle of the cycle.
Having two teenagers in the house (3 if you count a frequently visiting boyfriend!), I LOVE these warnings as the thought of having slow internet is enough to stop the kids binge watching Netflix and allows me a turn with the TV remote 
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Yup. Get these quite frequently. I have a1TB cap and usually use 500GB by end of month, so I get a few urgent over 50% reminders a day or two before months ended.
Makes a break from the mountains of spam I get. I wish Telstra would give me an easy way of sending them the dozens I get every month. At present you have to mark each one and send it to their spam section. Doesn’t seem to make any difference. I still get far too much.
On a brighter note, apparently I’m quite popular with many single Russian girls. What they want with a decrepit old pensioner is beyond me. But it’s nice to be appreciated.
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Yes I can share that annoying message with you - as you said often very minimal days prior to cessation - obviously they want you to sign up for additional data consumption.
BUT is it very easy to read … the percentage you have used of your total data, plus how many days you have left to use the data. Not rocket science!!
BUT of course someone will ‘click on’ and increase their data costs.
