Travel Technology - Blackberry 101

Trying to learn some basics about how blackberry works. If we have a lotus notes mail server at work, we can get the blackberry server software to work with our lotus notes.

Here are my questions:

- How does blackberry transfer data on a phone? Does it use GRPS or something else? Basically, does it count towards my data plan on my cell phone bill or something else?

- If my server is in Hong Kong, and I travel to another country with the same SIM card, do I need to do anything different to get my mail?

- If my server is in H.K., but I travel to the U.S. and use my cingular sim card instead to get my mail, will that work? I assume I will save on roaming that way.

- If we have 1 US cingular sim card for the people to use in the company (H.K. based company), each time a different person takes the same sim card to use in the U.S. Is it easy to switch which mail account it connects to with one sim card?

Thanks for your help!

I'm not sure that I will have all the answers that you're looking for here, but I'll give it a try.

I've had several different BBs, all tied in to my firm's Notes / BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) system. I've used both Cingular and T-Mobile and traveled through the US, Canada, the UK and parts of Europe with both carriers. The BBs, with proper global plans, have worked perfectly everywhere. However, I've never swapped SIM cards between carriers.

Cingular transmits data using the GPRS signal for older BBs -- the newer ones (71XX, 8700c, Pearl and so forth) use EDGE as well as GPRS. Tmob uses EDGE, although I think when it is using non-Tmob systems, it will differ.

To use Cingular for BB data, you have to have a Cingular plan for data or a BB specific plan... MEdia plans won't work.

Now, what I don't know, is how Cingular handles swapping out various devices on a SIM card. In theory, since the primary identifier for your BB to your BES is the BB's PIN, you should have seamless coverage. You may need to "register" the device when you swap cards.

This might be a better question for Pinstack (http://www.pinstack.com/) or one of the Blackberry-specific discussion groups.

When I first got my BB, I *lived* on the blackberryforums.com website. I posted many questions and got fast answers. You'll find lots of good FAQs there too.

Trying to learn some basics about how blackberry works. If we have a lotus notes mail server at work, we can get the blackberry server software to work with our lotus notes.

Here are my questions:

- How does blackberry transfer data on a phone? Does it use GRPS or something else? Basically, does it count towards my data plan on my cell phone bill or something else?

- If my server is in Hong Kong, and I travel to another country with the same SIM card, do I need to do anything different to get my mail?

- If my server is in H.K., but I travel to the U.S. and use my cingular sim card instead to get my mail, will that work? I assume I will save on roaming that way.

- If we have 1 US cingular sim card for the people to use in the company (H.K. based company), each time a different person takes the same sim card to use in the U.S. Is it easy to switch which mail account it connects to with one sim card?

Thanks for your help!

I think that (as p1cunnin says) the Berry is associated/registered as being with a particular carrier and it is not simply the case that you can just drop in another simcard when in the US and just expect it to work. You can get the phone registered/associated with Cingular but if this is just for travelling then it will be a pain to keep doing this.

However I think one simcard would work if you had the phones associated with Cingular as mentioned previously.

What you could do is just use Wifi (assuming your Berry supports it) when in the US to get mail (which is what I do) and then there aren't any roaming charges, which is a very good thing as I'm on PAYG from Orange.

Crackberry (http://crackberry.com/) would be the best bet for an answer

- How does blackberry transfer data on a phone? Does it use GRPS or something else? Basically, does it count towards my data plan on my cell phone bill or something else?


It uses the data function of the cellular network. If your Blackberry is sold by one of the GSM carriers (T-mobile, AT&T) then it will use GPRS, EDGE, or WCDMA/3G data. If you have a Sprint or Verizon Blackberry, it will use CDMA/EVDO data. Don't worry about the underlying technology; just about every modern Blackberry is compatible with multiple networks everywhere (Verizon calls these its "world" phones).

You need to get a Blackberry-specific data plan to use a Blackberry. Generally, these are for virtually unlimited data in the US.


- If my server is in Hong Kong, and I travel to another country with the same SIM card, do I need to do anything different to get my mail?


Aside from enabling international roaming and international data roaming (pricey!) with your service provider, no.



- If my server is in H.K., but I travel to the U.S. and use my cingular sim card instead to get my mail, will that work? I assume I will save on roaming that way.


You will save on roaming but you will need to add a Blackberry data plan to your Cingular/AT&T SIM and then link your Blackberry to that plan, which will also wipe out your settings from the existing carrier. Your Blackberry will take about 30-60 mins to re-sync. It's a pain, and not what the Blackberry is designed to do. Just expense it. :)

Most carriers do not offer prepaid Blackberry data plans.



- If we have 1 US cingular sim card for the people to use in the company (H.K. based company), each time a different person takes the same sim card to use in the U.S. Is it easy to switch which mail account it connects to with one sim card?


The person would need to re-activate the Blackberry with their email account information each time, which takes 30-60 minutes depending on network speed.

If your company is wealthy enough to afford the BES server software, it's probably wealthy enough to pay for international roaming. Most US providers have an international Blackberry data roaming package where your mobile email traffic is included when out of the country. Check if any of the carriers in Hong Kong do.

I guess this may also apply to other carriers but specifically with Verizon they have two Blackberry Data Plans.

$30/month if you are using BIS and getting email through POP/SMTP

$45/month if you are using BES as you state you plan to do.

If you opt for the $30 plan you don't get the option to activate the Enterprise feature on your phone.

Note that this is a 3 year old thread, that got bumped up by an apparent spammer.

Really, the bumper has 5000+ posts and been a member for 7 years, not sure how that would make one a spammer?

Note that this is a 3 year old thread, that got bumped up by an apparent spammer.

Nope it appeared on page 1 of the travel tech board, I didn't go looking for it :confused: no intention to spam intended.

I guess if were talking Blackberry 101, with recent changes in countries having access to anything within your Blackberry when you travel there is anyone taking blackberry's on international travel.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B405 Safari/531.21.10)

I guess if were talking Blackberry 101, with recent changes in countries having access to anything within your Blackberry when you travel there is anyone taking blackberry's on international travel.

Well no, because I don't travel to those countries. And if I did, try as I might, I can't get too upset about the Indian government knowing that I told a person in my lab too get something done immediately or that I asked my wife how the cats were.

Really, the bumper has 5000+ posts and been a member for 7 years, not sure how that would make one a spammer?
It wasn't Jimmie76 -- the moderators have deleted the message that bumped the thread, which was by a 2-post user.

It wasn't Jimmie76 -- the moderators have deleted the message that bumped the thread, which was by a 2-post user.

Aah that might explain things.