I’m always fascinated by the Internet — its size and exponential growth can really make the mind boggle.  For example, I love the statistic that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest nation in the world (behind only India and China). In Australia, over 10.5 million people have a Facebook profile — eclipsing many small countries.

According to Nielsen, the average Aussie Facebook user spends 6 hrs and 46 mins on the site each month – that’s almost a full working day! Seeing as everyone’s spending so much time on Facebook we thought it would be nice if our customers could manage a Telstra Pre-Paid mobile service direct from their Facebook homepage.

So today I’m excited to announce the launch of the My Telstra Pre-Paid Facebook app that makes topping up and managing a Pre-Paid mobile service as quick and easy as posting a status update.

In just a few clicks you can use the app to check balance information, recharge with a voucher or a stored debit or credit card and view up to 180 days of usage and recharge history. And should you run out of credit, you can ask your mates for a top up using the ‘request credit from friends’ feature which provides the option to put a call out on your Facebook wall or via a direct message.

In addition to the new Facebook application, we’re also making it easier to manage a Pre-Paid service direct from a mobile handset.

Pre-Paid customers using select Android™ smartphones will soon be able to download a My Pre-Paid app from the Google Play™ store. The app makes it easy for customers to view and change their current Pre-Paid offer, recharge using a voucher, a stored credit or debit card, PayPal, or send credit to another Pre-Paid service via Credit Me2U.

These new features follow recent improvements to the My Plan Manager portal that’s available on Telstra Post-Paid mobile phones.  In addition to existing capabilities including tracking data usage, viewing when your next bill is due and purchasing mobile data packs, the My Plan Manger portal now allows you to view and manage MessageBank® product subscriptions, view and manage Premium SMS cost control and view alternate Freedom Connect plans and inclusions from the convenience of your handset.

This bundle of initiatives is designed to help you save time and stay connected. We hope you find them handy.

How to access the My Telstra Pre-Paid app for Facebook

The My Telstra Pre-Paid app is available to download from Telstra’s dedicated customer service page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/telstra24x7. Customers can also search for ‘My Telstra Pre-Paid’ using the search tool on their Facebook homepage.

Once signed up, the app sits in your homepage apps list and is just a click away. No username or passwords are required to manage the account while signed into Facebook but each transaction requires a unique pin to ensure authorisation.