[shleppy_g]

I live in Ontario, Canada (home of RIM), and am the proud owner of a Blackberry Bold 9900 (my 5th BB). Living in Ontario I am a Rogers customer, Rogers is the carrier that I believed to be the lesser of two evils. After many years of being screwed by Bell for home phone and internet, I vowed to never give them another penny to spend in India (where Bell customer service calls are routed to) ever again.

As many my fellow Canadians will tell you, We're still waiting for Rogers to provide us with the 7.1 upgrade. I got all excited watching the Crackberry coverage from CES, especially when it was reported that the 7.1 upgrade would be rolled out to all in the next couple weeks.

This brings me to my question: Are certain carriers sabotaging RIM by not rolling out important updates in a timely manner? Would Rogers (or others) do this to Apple? Is this spawned from politics? Am I over reacting? We all know that RIM is fighting the press and it's been an uphill battle, but I can't help but think, the faster improved products get to us, the end users, the happier we'll be, and the better it would be for RIM.

I understand that I can put a leaked version of 7.1 on my 9900, but I'm one of those not very techy peeps, and would much prefer to be provided the update by my carrier. It's service that I believe we all deserve.

The Crackberry community is amazing and always full of help and insight. I would be grateful if you'd let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

[Silverfern]

i am from waterloo, i moved away from fido 2 weeks ago to wind (i feel all of the big 3 are evil beyond words), and also planning on cancelling my internet with bell very soon. You can still get 7.1 from the leaks though, i dont think that voids the warranty does it?

[shleppy_g]

i am from waterloo, i moved away from fido 2 weeks ago to wind (i feel all of the big 3 are evil beyond words), and also planning on cancelling my internet with bell very soon. You can still get 7.1 from the leaks though, i dont think that voids the warranty does it?

I feel your pain!

As for the other, Im not all that confident putting a leaked OS on my device. I just want Rogers to use the update that I'm sure has been provided to them by RIM.

[TGR1]

This brings me to my question: Are certain carriers sabotaging RIM by not rolling out important updates in a timely manner?

It does take the carriers some time to deploy the updates. Having said that, while I don't think the carriers are actively sabotaging RIM, I also don't think they are going out of their way to help RIM. Verizon really kicked RIM to the curb when they aggressively embraced Android (Droid campaign) and not only has that relationship not recovered IMO but RIM never got that strong with AT&T; simply squeezed out by Android and iOS since the carriers will only spend a finite amount on marketing and they will use them where they make the most money. This may very well change with BB10 launch.

FWIW, official carrier updates of Android is probably even worse.

Would Rogers (or others) do this to Apple?

No, because Apple insisted upon retaining control over their iOS updates.

[derekjdech]

I'm on SaskTel in Saskatchewan(duh) and SaskTel seems to be supporting RIM. Sadly, we are still waiting for 7.1, but because SaskTel is testing and doing some work on 7.1, because they have to make some changes for it to work properly. They have contests on now and then for a free Playbook, and recently, they started a promotion that if you take your CDMA BlackBerry, you can trade up to one of the 6 4G phones with a voice and data plan, and get a 100$ activation credit on the first bill and be entered to win the ultimate BlackBerry accessory: one of three Playbooks.
Also, the 9380, 9810, 9860, 9360, and the 9790 are currently 0$ on a three year contract, with the 9900 at 50$ for a 3 year. SaskTel seems to have faith in BlackBerry right now. I'm trying to convince my sister to get a 9360 or a 9790 to replace her Pearl Flip, considering her upgrade is available, and she has had 3 of the Pearl Flips in 18 months, all of them new.

[Bla1ze]

No carriers are sabotaging RIM. Rogers is and always has been slow for updates. If anything, Rogers is one of RIM's largest supporters and has been throughout many, many years and will continue to be. BlackBerry in Canada was introduced by Rogers.. aka Rogers / Cantel at the time. As for US carriers, Verizon has been pushing LTE services and until RIM pushes out an LTE device they're really not going to care anyway.. same with AT&T.

Arguably you can say Verizon went Android but not solely because they don't want RIM offerings, Android has basically been leading the way with their LTE compatibility so the choice for them at the time and even now is Android. Especially when you consider the amount of OEM Android manufacturers that can offer them cheap devices. A qazillion Android OEM's compared to one RIM.

Business logic, not some master plan to bring RIM down.. if anything, you'd have to blame RIM for not pushing LTE devices. How you can manage to create one of the best 3G stacks out there on your own but yet ignore the next evolution of your own product is beyond me but alas, they're realizing that is a concern that needs to be addressed now.

As for the leaks, just install them 9/10 the leaks usually end up as official releases anyway.

[fernandez21]

they do the same with android, webos (when it was still selling) and to a certain extent windows, apple is the only one that gets away with providing updates directly to the customer. hopefully this will be a thing of the past when bb10 comes out.

[pmccartney]

I have used a BB for a over decade and can honestly say that the Canadian carriers have always been slow to review and release updates, even before there was an iPhone.
It's not sabotage, they just generally suck at customer service. I will admit, I have personally seen some improvement lately, with Rogers. I have a Bell BB through work so I don't deal with them.

[sleepngbear]

No carriers are sabotaging RIM. Rogers is and always has been slow for updates. If anything, Rogers is one of RIM's largest supporters and has been throughout many, many years and will continue to be. BlackBerry in Canada was introduced by Rogers.. aka Rogers / Cantel at the time. As for US carriers, Verizon has been pushing LTE services and until RIM pushes out an LTE device they're really not going to care anyway.. same with AT&T.

Arguably you can say Verizon went Android but not solely because they don't want RIM offerings, Android has basically been leading the way with their LTE compatibility so the choice for them at the time and even now is Android. Especially when you consider the amount of OEM Android manufacturers that can offer them cheap devices. A qazillion Android OEM's compared to one RIM.

Business logic, not some master plan to bring RIM down.. if anything, you'd have to blame RIM for not pushing LTE devices. How you can manage to create one of the best 3G stacks out there on your own but yet ignore the next evolution of your own product is beyond me but alas, they're realizing that is a concern that needs to be addressed now.

As for the leaks, just install them 9/10 the leaks usually end up as official releases anyway.

I hear what you're saying here, but 1, LTE - at least until recently - is a power-hog; and 2, carriers are now starting to feel the pain of pushing so many heavy data-consuming devices. So maybe RIM has put a squeeze on themselves by not pursuing LTE more aggressively. But I think carriers may start to come back around to RIM's more bandwidth-efficient network, especially when the technology driving LTE becomes more power-efficient.

[Bla1ze]

I hear what you're saying here, but 1, LTE - at least until recently - is a power-hog; and 2, carriers are now starting to feel the pain of pushing so many heavy data-consuming devices. So maybe RIM has put a squeeze on themselves by not pursuing LTE more aggressively. But I think carriers may start to come back around to RIM's more bandwidth-efficient network, especially when the technology driving LTE becomes more power-efficient.

Oh ya, I wasn't complaining abt them NOT offering an LTE devices.. heck I live in Atlantic Canada and my carrier (Rogers) refuses to even put LTE in this area until something like 2014.

I don't get the allure anyway, wth are you doing on your phone that requires a connection faster then most home internet providers? lol.

[_StephenBB81]

Oh ya, I wasn't complaining abt them NOT offering an LTE devices.. heck I live in Atlantic Canada and my carrier (Rogers) refuses to even put LTE in this area until something like 2014.

I don't get the allure anyway, wth are you doing on your phone that requires a connection faster then most home internet providers? lol.

Maybe you actually are the type of person who requires a mobile phone?

I will spend upwards of 100 nights in Hotels this year, should be down from 150 last year, in addition to that much of my time that I am not in hotels I am traveling.


I pay a good chunk of money for highspeed home internet, IF coverage for LTE and devices with LTE support were available I could cut that home internet that is hardly needed out. (assuming of course US like Mobile data caps, vs Canadian mobile data caps)

but I certainly can see the appeal of the very high speed, and could very much see myself enjoying that speed when paired with my PlayBook

[azrin640]

I don't get the allure anyway, wth are you doing on your phone that requires a connection faster then most home internet providers? lol.

The same thing has been asked for fiber optic connection, lol.

[reeneebob]

I live in Ontario, Canada (home of RIM), and am the proud owner of a Blackberry Bold 9900 (my 5th BB). Living in Ontario I am a Rogers customer, Rogers is the carrier that I believed to be the lesser of two evils. After many years of being screwed by Bell for home phone and internet, I vowed to never give them another penny to spend in India (where Bell customer service calls are routed to) ever again.

As many my fellow Canadians will tell you, We're still waiting for Rogers to provide us with the 7.1 upgrade. I got all excited watching the Crackberry coverage from CES, especially when it was reported that the 7.1 upgrade would be rolled out to all in the next couple weeks.

This brings me to my question: Are certain carriers sabotaging RIM by not rolling out important updates in a timely manner? Would Rogers (or others) do this to Apple? Is this spawned from politics? Am I over reacting? We all know that RIM is fighting the press and it's been an uphill battle, but I can't help but think, the faster improved products get to us, the end users, the happier we'll be, and the better it would be for RIM.

I understand that I can put a leaked version of 7.1 on my 9900, but I'm one of those not very techy peeps, and would much prefer to be provided the update by my carrier. It's service that I believe we all deserve.

The Crackberry community is amazing and always full of help and insight. I would be grateful if you'd let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

Not to be a stickler but having spent years in call centres in Ontario I feel the need to point out the following:

1) Bell moved all primary call centres to Canada within the last 4 years. They are located in London, St Catherines, Ottawa, Kingston (although I can't remember if Startek closed in Kingston), Montreal and down east. The only time you will be routed to India (or the more likely Manila Phillipines) is during heavy volume times for overflow queues and tier support. Not sure about Rogers but judging from the complaints of my Rogers dealer compatriots across the way from where I work now their calls go overseas more than Bell/Virgin. I can't remember the last time I was shunted overseas when I called into Bell to be honest. I used to get yelled at by Americans when they called their Telco or Verizon and got me, a Canadian who had no clue in real world what Verizon service was like. The overflow shunting works both ways. I will say that when I spoke with my coworkers in Manila, they are bar none some of the most polite and hard working people I have ever dealt with.

2) No. There is no carrier conspiracy at work.

Sorry if this seems long winded - I may be free of call centres but it still bugs me when fallacies are said. I give Bell credit for pulling their centres to be majority Canada based again.


Sent from my brain using Tapatalk

[Laura Knotek]

I don't get the allure anyway, wth are you doing on your phone that requires a connection faster then most home internet providers? lol.

Streaming video, such as Netflix perhaps?

[anon(1603170)]

Streaming video, such as Netflix perhaps?

HSPA is fine for that, but i like technology moving forward, so its not in my interest to criticize the implementation of LTE ;d
As long as LTE improves latency (via network quality and strength), its a win, the increase in speed is just a plus.

There are no phones or tablets that exceed the 720p screen resolution as im aware, and they all have good pixel density so they make non-1080p videos look sharp and crisp, even SDs.

According to Netflix Tech Support, Netflix's content library is encoded into three bandwidth tiers, in a compression format based on the VC-1 video and Windows Media audio codecs. Of these, the lowest tier requires a continuous downstream bandwidth (to the client) of 1.5 Mbit/s, and offers stereo audio and video quality comparable to DVD. The middle tier requires 3 Mbit/s, and offers "better than DVD quality". The highest tier requires 5 Mbit/s, and offers 720p HD with surround sound audio. As of October 2011, several devices also have the ability to stream Netflix content at 1080p resolution, including the PlayStation 3 console and Roku 2 series set-top boxes which require 8 Mbit/s

Middle quality looks perfectly fine on mobile devices, and still all tiers are under the HSPA wing, not even H+.
Pretty much the same applies to any other streaming site, the content is usually compressed.

It would be mostly for tethering i would say.

[kraski]

I feel your pain!

As for the other, Im not all that confident putting a leaked OS on my device. I just want Rogers to use the update that I'm sure has been provided to them by RIM.

Here's the thing all the updates are available to all the carriers. Each selects which ones they want to push to their customers. How they select which updates to give to their customers is a mystery. It could very well be that they take a spinner and spin it. And if the pointer points ENE, they take that version.

When I had my 9800, I had a really good leaked OS on my phone. AT&T selected the next one after it. Which, although it had some extra features, also threw in some large bugs. So much for carrier selection.

Some carriers are slow at selecting OS upgrades. AT&T is notorious for being one of them. From the latter part of this thread, it appears Rogers is, too. So, what? I have my own way of dealing with OS versions.

I always try to have copies of the latest OS version approved by my carrier and the last one that worked well on my phone, in case I start having issues. I can go back to those, especially the carrier approved version for the local warranty repair location to see on the phone. If it's bricked, that won't matter. Anyway, those are for emergencies.

When a new OS build comes out, whether it's a leak or "official", I check here for several things. Stability, features, bugs (or lack of them), fixes to past bugs, and battery life. If the pluses outweigh the minuses, and/or it either has an important feature(s) missing from the previous build on my phone or fixes issues with the OS I'm using, and/or it has better battery life, then it's likely to go on my phone. I can afford to wait 3-6 days to find out those results more than I can afford issues or poor battery life. And, since each release ("official" or leak) is official for RIM, whether my carrier approves it or not is less important to me than how well it's likely to function on my phone.

What happens after install of a Blackberry OS seems as much a result of hardware quirks and what apps and tweaks are in place as the OS itself. Right now, I'm running the latest leak for my phone. It has some extra features I like, including Battery Saver. Lots of people have raved about exceptional battery life. I great pretty good battery life, but only with Battery Saver on all the time and some battery hogs removed. I've had OS versions that most had issues that were smooth as butter on my phone with awesome battery life. So, no matter if it's a carrier approved OS or a leak, you take the same chances. But only using "official" builds may have you missing out on some excellent OS builds.

[BitPusher2600]

Are carriers sabotaging RIM?
How 'bout this guy:
http://forums.crackberry.com/general...an-699376-new/

Granted it's not a software thing, but it certainly wouldn't make a BB look very exciting.

[jthep]

I am not sure sabotage is the correct word, but RIM's products have been treated very unfairly by the carriers. Here in the States I remember that BS move AT&T made by removing the free Playbook Bridge app from the app world and forcing users to pay for tethering. I know there is an easy work-around, but would anyone dare do this to Apple when they develop a new technology?

I think its bc RIM doesn't have the position of power Apple or Google have so carriers can bully them. RIM is viewed in the States as a declining company with BB losing market share rapidly from the former darling of the smartphone world and market leader. Playbook has yet to really catch on anywhere, not just the States and its seems like its RIM vs. the world. Really Amazon upgraded their player and snuffed out Amazon Prime videos on PB? No Netlfix app, no Skype, no Kindle app?

I still luv my BB smartphone and hope my next phone is built like a Bold touch (9900/9930) running BB10 with significant Android apps available. I still like my PB even with its limitations in compatibility with many popular apps. I look forward to 2.0, but really hope Android apps get ported quickly, but I am skeptical...

[palmless]

Sadly, we are still waiting for 7.1, but because SaskTel is testing and doing some work on 7.1, because they have to make some changes for it to work properly.

Amazing that people continue to accept this lie. Especially when, time after time, the changes are limited to:

- Adding Crapware
- Removing functionality that conflicts with the carrier's other revenue sources
- Introduction of flaws due to "second programmer" syndrome

Raise hands, anyone believe SaskTel is making changes so that it "works properly"?

No, because Apple insisted upon retaining control over their iOS updates.

Exactly. And now that folks have seen and experienced that, I don't expect they'll tolerate being strung out needlessly by the carriers much longer.

[Resist28]

I am not sure sabotage is the correct word, but RIM's products have been treated very unfairly by the carriers. Here in the States I remember that BS move AT&T made by removing the free Playbook Bridge app from the app world and forcing users to pay for tethering. I know there is an easy work-around, but would anyone dare do this to Apple when they develop a new technology?

I think its bc RIM doesn't have the position of power Apple or Google have so carriers can bully them. RIM is viewed in the States as a declining company with BB losing market share rapidly from the former darling of the smartphone world and market leader. Playbook has yet to really catch on anywhere, not just the States and its seems like its RIM vs. the world. Really Amazon upgraded their player and snuffed out Amazon Prime videos on PB? No Netlfix app, no Skype, no Kindle app?

I still luv my BB smartphone and hope my next phone is built like a Bold touch (9900/9930) running BB10 with significant Android apps available. I still like my PB even with its limitations in compatibility with many popular apps. I look forward to 2.0, but really hope Android apps get ported quickly, but I am skeptical...

I would say the playbook is pretty significant in Canada.