I'm so worried about my mobile phone bill because of exceeding data allowance, can anyone help me?

[Anonymous]

I have a 750MB data allowance per month. I received a text saying I was nearing my limit (I set my notification to 685MB) and then listened to some songs on YouTube on my phone on the way to university.

I've just checked and it now stands at 795MB :(! According to the website, 1MB of data costs £3.06, so if that's correct, does that mean my phone bill will have an extra £137.70 on top of it?

It does say on my data usage page that: "Your service provider may account for data usage" differently, although I don't know what that means.

Is there anything I can say to them to help me avoid if not these charges cancelled altogether, but a way of getting them reduced? This have never happened before and I've been with O2 for seven years; is this likely to carry any currency?

I'm a student in the last few months of my course and I can't really handle the added stress of trying to find money I don't have. If anyone at all could provide me with any advice, I'd really appreciate it :).

xxx

[Anonymous]

Hi and Welcome to the forum,

O2 recently changed its policy on data usage.

On payg your service will drop from your included data monthly allowance to the standard o2 charges unless you add a bolt on that includes data. This is caled Web Daily which is £1 per day for 50mb of data use.

Web Daily link 

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=Companion,question=ref(User):str(Mobile),C...

On Pay Monthly Contract your service used to  slow down {throttled} ,but now it just ceases to carry on, unless you again add a bolt on with a data bundle.

O2 Bolt on's which can be added via your MYO2 or by texting WEBSNACK1GB for a one off 1gb data bolt on for £10, or WORKS for 1GB+50 pic messages for £10, or ALLROUNDER for 500MB+20 pic messages for £6 to 21300.

A recent discussion thread on the changes http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly-and-Pay-Go/Changes-to-Data-allowance-policy/td-p/567230

To see what your phone is using can either be achieved by its internal data counter or by downloading one of the various apps.

For example on an iPhone a person can see whats being used by navigating to Settings > Mobile > and at the bottom each app shows what has been used.

If your still concerned then contact O2 via 202 for pay monthly customers or 4445 for payg customers from your phone to have your account checked, even if just for peach of mind.

Possibly think about increasing your data amount and or use wifi when and where possible.

To stop the internet connnection on your phone you could turn off "mobile data" and this will stop the phone connecting on the o2 service and just allow wifi connection.

Look in your phones settings for something along the lines of "mobile data" 

Help Link on saving on data usage http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/spending_saving/2012/11/16/10_ways_to_cut_your_mobi...

[MI5]

You do not get charged for going over on data and you can check what usage O2 thinks you have in your "My O2" app or by logging in here http://www.o2.co.uk/myo2

[davethorp · Accepted solution]

YouTube or any other form of video streaming is a surefire way to plough through your data allowance fairly rapidly.

If you want to listen to music on your way anywhere why not simply put the music you want to listen to onto your phone and then use the phone's music player app. Or download something like spotify or tunein radio to listen to music. Streaming audio will still use data but nowhere near as much as streaming video

[Anonymous]

---

@davethorp wrote:

YouTube or any other form of video streaming is a surefire way to plough through your data allowance fairly rapidly.

If you want to listen to music on your way anywhere why not simply put the music you want to listen to onto your phone and then use the phone's music player app. Or download something like spotify or tunein radio to listen to music. Streaming audio will still use data but nowhere near as much as streaming video

---

Especially in HD formats too.

[Anonymous]

Sorry on what website does it say each mb is £3.06 because we can assure you it's not

[Bambino]

As the Three network only charges 1p per MB on their P&G plans, £3.06 would seem a little exorbitant. 

[Anonymous]

Yeah I know they have just put there prices up but not that much

[aldaweb]

---

@Bambino wrote:

As the Three network only charges 1p per MB on their P&G plans, £3.06 would seem a little exorbitant. 

---

And 4G data at that too

To the OP: If you must have YouTube music on the go find an app that let's you download to the handset over wifi before you go.

[anticpated]

Presuming you have a smartphone, using a data tariff such as what you have, you would benefit from using Wi-Fi whenever available. I turn my data off in the house and use Wi-Fi. I also have 750MB per month as part of my airtime and I nearly used it all last month. 

So I've become pragmatic about it with how often I use the data.