Manx Telecom pay monthly mobile customers will start receiving text messages notifying them of data usage when they are using the internet and accessing emails while off-Island. The Text Alerts service will enable travellers to keep track of how much mobile data they have used and help them to control their data roaming bills. Graham Shimmin, Manx Telecom Product Manager, said the Text Alerts service operated as close to real time as possible so that customers would get up to date information about how much mobile data they had used. He said: “We will monitor the volume of data used by a customer as soon as they connect to any off-Island network. Customers will be notified when they go past defined thresholds. Once the set thresholds have been reached we will send Text Alerts to the customer which will help them keep track of how much data they are using while roaming.” The Text Alerts service will be provided to all of Manx Telecom’s pay monthly mobile customers whether they are using mobile phones, laptops or other portable devices and messages will be sent to the number that is accessing mobile data. The use of mobile data is charged by the amount of data sent and received rather than the time spent using the service. A Text Alert will be sent the first time a customer uses mobile data while roaming in any calendar month. When they have used 5 Mega Bytes (MB) of mobile data while roaming in the same month they will receive another Text Alert and further alerts will be sent at 10 Mega Bytes (and multiples there of). Each time the Text Alert will say how much data has been used. Counters will be reset every calendar month. If a customer’s total data usage reaches 50MB in any given month, a Text Alert will be sent asking them to contact Manx Telecom. If the customer does not contact Manx Telecom at this point then the data service will be suspended to prevent further costs being incurred. This suspension will only affect mobile data, customers will still be able to make and receive texts and calls. As a guide 1MB is equivalent to viewing around 500 emails or 50 web pages. These figures are only a guide as every email and webpage uses a different amount of data. Manx Telecom pay monthly customers will automatically get Text Alert messages when using mobile data when roaming - there is no need to sign up for the scheme which is provided free of charge. If customers wish to opt out of Text Alerts they must contact Manx Telecom Customer Accounts on 624624. For more information about Text Alerts go to www.manxtelecom.com/alerts - ENDS-