When I first purchased my smart phone I had no idea what my mobile internet usage would be like. I was using an Optus mobile plan which offered just 250MB of data a month and within days I had realised that this was not going to be even near enough for me. On a daily basis I would log onto my Optus dashboard to see that I was using over 10MB a day on data. As the middle of the month approached, my data allowance was almost used up and I was in panic mode.
What was causing all of this where the apps on the phone and their demand for updates and data even though I was not actually using them. In technical terms it is called “Background Data”. Your mobile phone apps although turned off (or you have moved away from them), can still be running in the background accessing the internet for new updates and upgrades. The best way to control this is to turn “Background Data” off. This ensures that updates and upgrades only occur when you allow them to.
Before I had the chance to make this change however, I was in contact with Optus looking for some help. They pointed me to their Top Ups as a way to give my account some extra credit in order to get through this and the following month.
It worked, and I managed to avoid by first Bill Shock episode. So what are the top ups available via Optus Prepaid?
Optus allows you to buy extra data packs which will last for 30 days each.
$5 will give you 500MB, $10 offers 1GB and $20 gives you 2GB. You can use this data on any mobile browsing you choose. Remember that your data is counted in 1MB increments.
