[homerj109]

I recieved a Pearl 8130 I purchased off of Ebay but I was not able to activate it, the ESN # was valid and I was told by alltel that it needs a blackberry or smartphone plan in order to operate.

Is there anyway around this? Is this accurate?

Thanks.

[MaggieMcCoy87]

I think with Alltel they won't let you activate a BB without a data plan. I know you can on other carriers, but I think Alltel makes you have the smartphone plan. If I'm wrong hopefully someone corrects me!!

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[Kaylajoy21]

Yes, bb need the data plan with alltel. No way around it. WinMo phones work a little differently. But with bb, you need the data.

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[jeff.parent]

Plus why would you want a BB w/o a data plan? I noticed that with my BB vs my old Treo that my BB uses many fold the amount of data. Its constantly chattering away. Its the one smart phone that transcends the Cell + PDA ideology. No email, no web, no RSS...what do you want your BB for with none of these functions?

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[big.daddy]

Probably due to alltels lack of decent phones.

[kch50428]

Probably due to alltels lack of decent phones.

No, it's Alltel's deal with RIM. A Blackberry data feature is required in order to activate.

[homerj109]

My laptop and an internet connection are pretty much always on hand so why surf and use web features on a phone right?

I was drawn to the cool apps you can put on blackberry's am kinda tired of my old razr.

[digitard]

It wont "crash an entire tower". That's not the issue at all... but it's on track.

The Blackberry feature will provision an account in RIM's BIS/BES server (whatevers appropriate for your selected setup). It also gives you a static IP address w/ Alltel (but that's not the issue).

The issue is, as Starlaleann mentioned, is that if you dont have the feature your BB is going to still keep pinging RIM. The issue then becomes that your BB becomes denied, so it tries again, and again, and again, and it keeps getting denied. This will cause network congestion on the data side since your sending constant data to RIM and instead of accepting it they're denying it so your BB tries again. Because of this Alltel doesn't allow BB's on their system w/o a BB capable code.

If someone does happen to manage to activate it w/o the rep knowing they do audit checks and if your BB ESN fits the algorithm they'll just disable it until you change phones or pay for the feature.

D.