[yankees9920]

I want to make sure I understand this. When I get a blackberry with verizon and a data package (no exchange server). I get access to BIS which allows me to hook up my gmail, and other POP3 accounts and pushes those emails right to my device?
Are emails from gmail and POP3 pushed the second they are received?

[revolutionary_3]

I'm not a longtime BB user but I've been using BB for about 8mo now. With BIS you can add your e-mail accounts to be pushed to your phone. People report near instant to a few minute delay. I know my g-mail account is as soon as it arrives in the inbox. Hotmail, I usually see about a two minute lag. Your [email protected] account will always be instant. You'll be able to access up to 10 e-mail accounts on your BB.

I currently have VZW and the data plan for $30 gives you BIS e-mail, messenger, internet, as long as you have a phone plan through them. I would also advise on a texting plan if you dont already have one on your account. That is, of course, if you use texting. I'm assuming you will be due to the convience of QWERTY, or maybe you type a lot of emails. I dont know your style.

Edit: Forgot to post this link for you. Tells you all you need to know about BIS:
BlackBerry - PDA Internet - BlackBerry Internet Service at BlackBerry.com

[telejeff]

Is push email impossible without BIS? I've always wondered this. Doesn't gmail receive emails immediately? Wouldn't a blackberry get your email just as quick as any gmail imap client would?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've always wondered what's so different about BIS vs. other email solutions.

[JRSCCivic98]

Blackberries are not POP3 email clients like other smartphones are. They are not the ones that do the polling of the email accounts to check for messages. The BIS/BES servers are the ones that poll the email accounts and then "push" or handoff the emails to the BB. Remember that the BB originated as a 2 way pager. Back then pager systems would push the message to your pagers, RIM first expanded on that to allow for more text then what a simple pager would do. As time passed and things developed, they made changes to allow for email to work the same way.

This is the main reason why their push system is also their biggest weakness. If the NOC at RIM goes down, you loose all email/browsing capability on the berry, unless you're using something like Opera Mini which uses SOCKS on the IP protocol in the phone to use the carrier's network gateways.

[BerryMedic20]

Is push email impossible without BIS? I've always wondered this. Doesn't gmail receive emails immediately? Wouldn't a blackberry get your email just as quick as any gmail imap client would?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've always wondered what's so different about BIS vs. other email solutions.

Having just switched to a blackberry, I can tell you that Blackberry doesn't do push email nearly as well as I expected. A better way is to take advantage of the gmail IMAP IDLE technology. In my experience, this is the only way to get true push email, and perfect syncing.

I've said this a million times, but my Palm Treo with Chattermail (an email client) used IMAP IDLE technology, and this worked the best, bar none. Here's what you get with that...

- INSTANT e-mail pushed to your device
- instant synchronization between device and server, and vice versa
--> this includes deletions, read/unread status, etc.

If RIM/Google can make that work, they will have a good system. Until then, it will be flawed, at least in my mind.

[JRSCCivic98]

Having just switched to a blackberry, I can tell you that Blackberry doesn't do push email nearly as well as I expected. A better way is to take advantage of the gmail IMAP IDLE technology. In my experience, this is the only way to get true push email, and perfect syncing.

I've said this a million times, but my Palm Treo with Chattermail (an email client) used IMAP IDLE technology, and this worked the best, bar none. Here's what you get with that...

- INSTANT e-mail pushed to your device
- instant synchronization between device and server, and vice versa
--> this includes deletions, read/unread status, etc.

If RIM/Google can make that work, they will have a good system. Until then, it will be flawed, at least in my mind.

What you described is what BES does. BIS is for people without the corporate BES and yes, BIS does have a little bit of a delay and sync limitations. That's why RIM markets BES servers... it's their cash cow.

Personally speaking, Chattermail sucked the bazooka. The latest VersaMail client from Palm works wonders, especially now since it does ActiveSync as well with Exchange servers. Yeah, I'm a bit biased towards Exchange as a mail server.

[b320]

I want to make sure I understand this. When I get a blackberry with verizon and a data package (no exchange server). I get access to BIS which allows me to hook up my gmail, and other POP3 accounts and pushes those emails right to my device?
Are emails from gmail and POP3 pushed the second they are received?

No, gmail and POP are not pushed instantly. However, RIM uses sophisticated methods to make sure that all BIS e-mail is delivered as quickly as possible. Your messages will be delivered significantly faster on a reliable basis than any plain polling mechanism such as the one used on the iPhone and most other plain POP3/IMAP setups.

[edit] Of course, any BIS user can use the included @xxx.blackberry.net service for push e-mail. For time-critical e-mail, just forward messages to your device's blackberry.net address.[/edit]

@BerryMedic20 - you may find it "flawed" but not every solution works for everyone. I have extensive amount of experience with BES, Gmail, AOL and POP3 email over Blackberry and have to say that while BES is nearly-instant (speed is most often delayed by network coverage and inefficiencies existing in your corporate network), for most people, Gmail and AOL will work nearly as fast (within a minute for most emails). As far as other POP3 and IMAP, it really depends on how popular the provider is and whether they can proactively work with RIM to make sure their e-mail works well with BIS (which both Google and AOL do).