Internet and email don't work! Unlocked Verizon Bold 9650 with French SIM card

[angrienne]

I am in DESPERATE need of your help! Neither Verizon nor Numericable (my French carrier) seem to be able to offer any tech support beyond telling me to pull the battery, toggle connections on and off, etc. I'll be extremely grateful for anything you guys could offer by way of advice!

I am not a techie by any stretch of the imagination, so I probably won't understand any jargon or acronyms you use in your replies, and will similarly need more detailed instructions on how to access things within my device (e.g., "just go to the host routing table!" won't mean anything to me).

The lowdown:
1. I have a Verizon branded Bold 9650. I have unlocked it so that it is able to make/receive phone calls and texts by having Verizon provide me with the MEP code.

2. I have an unlimited data and Blackberry internet plan with Numericable, who contracts their 3G service through Bouygues. I am 100% sure of my plan, but whenever I try to open my browser, it tells me that "Browsing over the cellular network is not included as part of your current service plan. To browse the web you must use Wifi or contact your service provider to change your service plan".

3. I plan to crosspost this on the Blackberry Support forums and the Blackberry France forums. I hope this isn't bad manners, but I just want to get this resolved as soon as possible.

4. I have browsed other solutions but a lot of them seem to require a Windows computer to connect the Blackberry to. I, unfortunately, only have a Mac.

5. I've been waiting for over a week for something to change - Numericable at first told me that 'it takes 5 days to register on the network' and then to await a call from tech support that never came.

6. I would ideally like to be able to use this phone whenever I go back to the States in 7 months, so I don't want to mod it in an way that makes it permanently unusable on the Verizon network.

EDIT: Some additional information... under Host Routing Table, there are no entries. I tried selecting Register Now and got a popup that said "Registration message sent!" but nothing seemed to change.

If you need any other information, please don't hesitate to let me know, and thanks so much in advance for your help!

[freethisberrydotcom]

Have you tried to have the carrier register the device on the BIS account?

[angrienne]

BIS account? I am not familiar with that term. Sorry!

One additional thing that I have done is to go to BlackBerry Internet Service and enter my PIN and IMEI, but it told me that "This BlackBerry® device is not registered with your wireless service provider". What that means, I don't know.

EDIT: Nevermind; I am assuming that BIS must mean BlackBerry Internet Service since the website I just typed in the post automatically displays as that name. Is what I just tried to do myself by going to bouyguestelecom.blackberry.com "registering the device on the BIS account"?

[SwitchBeach]

It sounds like either your data plan is not properly set up on your account or else your BlackBerry is not active on the BIS.

Contact the carrier.

[angrienne]

Is there anything I can do to activate my Blackberry on the BIS? Customer service is not open today (it's Sunday), and as I've referenced before, they're seriously not helpful.

[freethisberrydotcom]

Try to do it on their BIS site. Sorry couldn't locate it.

[angrienne]

You probably couldn't find the BIS site for Numericable because as I said in my OP, they contract their 3G service through Bouygues. The link for the Bouygues BIS site is also in one of my previous posts; is that what you are referring to?

[SwitchBeach]

Originally Posted by angrienne

Is there anything I can do to activate my Blackberry on the BIS? Customer service is not open today (it's Sunday), and as I've referenced before, they're seriously not helpful.

You are unfortunately not going to be able to do it yourself.

You are going to need to find out from the carrier if you are on (or supposed to be on) the Numericable or the Bouygues BIS.

Because you have already indicated that when you tried to set up a BIS account on Bouygues, it indicates that your device is "not registered with your wireless service provider". Which means that Bouygues does not have the device active.

(Note that Verizon cannot assist you with another carrier's BIS.)

[angrienne]

- There is no Numericable BIS. As I said, they use Bouygues' 3G and hence their BIS.

But question: what would giving them my phone's PIN and IMEI do, anyways? I didn't buy my phone from them, just my SIM card. Why would I expect my phone be registered on their network?

[SwitchBeach]

You are not understanding how BlackBerry Data (BIS) works.

Your device MUST be registered with a carrier's BIS in order for data service to work. You register the device by entering the PIN and IMEI in the carrier's BIS.

But since you are going through a third party vendor, you need to find out from them how you get your device registered on their BIS.

You might also run into a problem in that you might not be able to get the Service Books (which are required for data to work) because neither of those carriers support that device that you are using.

[freethisberrydotcom]

With dual cdma/gsm phones, you will most likely transfer over service books. This might be a tough one.

[jeremyvdf]

I had a similar problem with my Verizon 9650. I finally got BIS to work after playing around in the e-screen for days. It turns out there's an option in there to turn on data services. If you still haven't gotten yours to work I can share what I did and maybe it can help you as well.