I have a mint blackberry 9630 that I purchased in 2009 that I would like to reactivate for my daughter. I called Verizon and the rep said the only plans available to me were unlimited calling/unlimited texts and 1 gig of data which would cost me $90.00. My daughter is 14 years old she doesnt need unlimited minutes nor does she need that much data. I feel that because I have my own phone Verizon is trying to hose me and only offering an outrages plan that I have no use for. What are my options? Thanks Tug
There are other options, however, a data plan will be required, as all BlackBerry devices on Verizon require one. You may be better off getting her a "dumbphone" off of Craigslist and activating that. I would go to a Verizon store and talk to a rep in person instead of on the phone.
I was reading an article last night and it said you'll get a better deal by calling in. If you go into the store they charge you more because they have more overhead which sounds logical. If I can find the web site I'll post the link.
Yea they definitely have different plans. Walk back into the store and if they tell you the same thing tell em bull, they definitely have plans other than that. Verizon is terrible.
What are your goals with this phone? Just talk and text? If you can live without BB Browser, BBM, and BIS email, you can always go with Page Plus Cellular. They use the Verizon network. There are service books that you can load to get data working (Opera Mini, LogicMail, etc. (BB Browser with OS 5) ). The Page Plus pre-paid plans are much cheaper than Verizon. Unlimited Talk and Text with 2GB of data is only $55. Unlimited Talk and Text with 100MB of data is $40. 1200 minutes, 3000 texts, and 100MB of data is $30. They don't officially support Blackberrys but I have my Verizon 9650 working just fine with a little bit of service book hacking.
Page Plus does not send out new service books to your device. You have to manually load them using your BB Desktop Manager. The service books are available on the kittywireless forums (Page Plus reseller) or you can also get them at Howard Forums along with instructions on how to load them using BB Desktop Manager. You may also have to preform an ESN reset to have the device register on the BlackBerry network if it does not do so automatically.
You could also unlock the Tour. The Sprint 9630 comes factory unlocked, but the Verizon one you will have to enter an unlock code, which you can get off eBay for a dollar or two.
If your daughter needs push email/BIS (data away from wifi), then you'll need to pay the $10 BlackBerry data plan on top of whatever talk/text plan you choose on T-Mobile prepaid.
The minimum pre-paid T-Mobile plan for BIS Blackberry is $30. $10 extra for BIS. $40 total.
One plan is 100 minutes, unlimited text, unlimited data (throttled after 5GB), the other is 1500 minutes/texts and 30GB of data. Not as great of a talk/text value as Page Plus.
In addition, with a Tour you will only get 2G EDGE speeds due to the missing support for the T-Mobile 3G AWS bands on the device.
Last edited by jamesp614; 08-01-12 at 11:34 AM.
Reason: Add more details on T-Mobile plans