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What’s the only thing worse than paying that monthly AT&T bill? Paying an even higher AT&T bill, which happens when you blow through your allotted talk time and/or text messages.
That’s why I’m a newfound fan of OverMyMinutes Alerter, a free app that alerts you via e-mail and/or SMS when you’re getting close to your talk/text limits.
At first blush, this may seem unnecessary. After all, you can use AT&T’s own MyWireless app to review your minutes and data usage, or just dial *646# to get a free text message showing your remaining minutes.
But those options require action on your part–you have to remember to do them. OverMyMinutes is a set-it-and-forget-it solution, one that can help prevent unwelcome surprises come the next billing cycle.
The app–which effectively serves as a front end to the OverMyMinutes Web service available to nearly any phone user–lets you sign up for a free account directly.
You also have to provide your AT&T user name and password, which some users will undoubtedly balk at. OverMyMinutes promises total security and privacy; the account info is necessary so the service can obtain your talk/text tallies.
The app itself is fairly straightforward, letting you specify when and how it should alert you when your minutes are running low. However, it doesn’t currently mention anything about SMS monitoring, which is confusing. (The developer says you’ll get alerts when you’re down to five texts left and then down to one.)
I like getting OverMyMinutes’ daily usage summary, and I like knowing that it’ll notify me before I blow past my SMS limit (which has been known to happen). If that sounds good to you as well, I’d say signing up for OverMyMinutes is a no-brainer.
