[garberinc]

Just a simple question about BB10. Used to be a happy BB user for many years. Then, I switched to Android and really haven't looked back.

BB10 looks fairly enticing, albeit a little late in the game.

My question is.... would the new BB10 phones still rely on the RIM/ BB infrastructure/ servers that keep going down? I remember a few years ago, there was an outage and I didn't have any data for a couple days.

This, I believe, would be a major deal breaker. These days, with all things data intensive, there is no time for a data outage, no matter how pretty the phone/ OS is.

[mikeo007]

Some services will still rely on some part of RIMs infrastructure and serves (BBM for example). But it looks like BIS won't be available on BB10, so that's one less point of failure.

[garberinc]

Thanks Mike

[joeldf]

The BIS servers don't "keep going down". That's a bit of an over dramatic statement.

Yes, there were spotty outages last weekend and into early this week that didn't last long and it wasn't everywhere (I never lost it), and that's all there's been since the real major outage that happened, what, about a year and a half ago? I can't even remember when that was now, as I don't think I was affected for very long.

iCloud had an outage recently (although, I guess it's really a "feature"), also briefly however. And I think Google has had a few over the years too.

No server based system is 100% perfect. It's one of the reasons I won't use any "cloud" service for any kind of actual storage, period.

Leaked images of the new touchscreen shows it has a BIS symbol in the signal status area, so BIS will have a function, though it may be reduced from what it does now. Possibly just for pushing email and other notifications.

[mikeo007]

Leaked images of the new touchscreen shows it has a BIS symbol in the signal status area, so BIS will have a function, though it may be reduced from what it does now. Possibly just for pushing email and other notifications.

They already said they weren't using BIS for email anymore.
The symbol could be anything, it's just a Blackberry symbol afterall.

[Thunderbuck]

I believe what is happening is that E-MAIL won't depend on BIS anymore. BBM and other related services will still use it.

[garberinc]

BB outages are hardly sporadic and intermittent. And when they hit, it really cripples its users. My statement was hardly over -dramatic. Do a simple Google search and see how many irritated customers there are.
Here is simply one example:

http://www.paydayadvanceuk.co.uk/new...kberry-outage/

[kevinnugent]

I believe what is happening is that E-MAIL won't depend on BIS anymore. BBM and other related services will still use it.

I thought I read somewhere they were using ActiveSync for emails etc. From Windows.

[Branta]

My question is.... would the new BB10 phones still rely on the RIM/ BB infrastructure/ servers that keep going down? I remember a few years ago, there was an outage and I didn't have any data for a couple days.

This, I believe, would be a major deal breaker. These days, with all things data intensive, there is no time for a data outage, no matter how pretty the phone/ OS is.

I don't understand how the Europe data outage would have impacted a US user. Or was the Verizon service also down but the outage kept secret until now?

[bluetroll]

If they drop the compression, then they will alienate all the users in Asia and areas with expensive data plans.

[joeldf]

I thought I read somewhere they were using ActiveSync for emails etc. From Windows.

That's for hosted Outlook Exchange accounts (like business/corporate, government, or universities running their own in-house email servers) that aren't running through BES.

They still need something for regular consumer ISP based pop3 email and gmail accounts. I figured they would keep BIS working for that too. I haven't heard anything official otherwise.

[jonty12]

BB outages are hardly sporadic and intermittent. And when they hit, it really cripples its users. My statement was hardly over -dramatic. Do a simple Google search and see how many irritated customers there are.
Here is simply one example:

RIM face lawsuits after BlackBerry outage | Payday Loans News

That's the ONE from last year. Besides that there were a few short "brownouts" last week. A cummulative 5-6 days down globally in 15 years is hardly a major problem.

[CrackedBarry]

Yup. Every service can go down. The difference is, when iMessage goes down, I can't use iMessage for a couple of hours. No biggie.

But when RIMs network goes down, there goes my web access and my email. Now THAT is a biggie.

RIMs solution with running their own network is a thing of the past (compression mainly benefits text, for example. So it won't do much on a 3,5G-4G network where e majority of the data is video and audio. And as for those Asian customers with expensive data plans, there are other browsers on the market that compress your data. Opera Mini, for example)

But does anyone know what their plans are in regards to the 5$ service charge they charge their customers every month? It HAS been a major (and consistent!) part of their earnings up to now. But they can't charge the same amount for what amounts to basically just providing BBM to their users. Does anybody know?

[Roo Zilla]

Yup. Every service can go down. The difference is, when iMessage goes down, I can't use iMessage for a couple of hours. No biggie.

If you're using an iPhone and not an iPad or iPod Touch, and the recipient is on an iPhone, iMessage defaults to standard SMS if iMessage goes down. The message gets sent, one way or another.

RIMs solution with running their own network is a thing of the past (compression mainly benefits text, for example. So it won't do much on a 3,5G-4G network where e majority of the data is video and audio. And as for those Asian customers with expensive data plans, there are other browsers on the market that compress your data. Opera Mini, for example)

Small point, but the vast majority of compression takes place in the form of recompressing photos. As you stated audio and video is never compressed, probably too much stress on the server side to do it on the fly each time it's requested. Also, data plans in Asia are not very expensive compared to NA. For example, I'm on a plan on China Unicom for which I pay 168RMB (about $25) for which I get 450 minutes of talk, 300 texts, and 650MB of data. My friend has one that gives 60 minutes of talk, 500MB and pays 60RMB (almost $10). Compared to nominal GDP, yes it's expensive, but it's cheaper than you find in NA.

But does anyone know what their plans are in regards to the 5$ service charge they charge their customers every month? It HAS been a major (and consistent!) part of their earnings up to now. But they can't charge the same amount for what amounts to basically just providing BBM to their users. Does anybody know?

I'm a bit curious myself. In places like India, plans with BBM only cost like under $3 a month, or $0.095 a day, basically an SMS replacement. I'd like to know how much Vodaphone pays RIM if a customer just pays the 7 Rupees and uses the service for a day.