[dejongj]

Listen to yourself and do just that. Again everything is opinion or speculation. You say things don't work, someone else says they do. Toss a coin.

And now he is saying that everything is working fine? I'm totally confused now...Then again, I do notice a subtle goal post shift in that last post...sigh...

[murakozi]

"If the only reason RIM/Blackberry ever had you as a customer was your carrier's BIS roaming plan, that's an awfully tenuous basis from which to pick a highly complex, multi-faceted personal-assistant product. Why would you want a Samsung device anyway?"

I currently use three functions on my BB9900:
- e-mail
- BBM (mostly non-voice)
- calendar

All three require very little data traffic, and I can get by with some 10 MB/day, even with heavy use. Currently there are no (zero, none, nada) other possibilities in Hungary to get any (any!) comparable internationa cost saving options (and I have checked and double-checked all carriers, Telekom, Vodafone and Telenor also). If I would not have the BIS, I would have to pay several EURO (or USD, which suits your comparsions better) per MB for traffic abroad, with insane calculating options.

"Data traffic from users over the last few years is SKYROCKETING. Most modern digital cameras today produce image files so large that you can't even attach 2 photos to an email before that email is too large for a BIS-connected device to download."

I use my phone for work. I don't even need that camera on the phone. It is only a problem - for example, Audi or Opel (GM) don't let you even go into the factory with a camera phone. I want a Blackberry without a camera, I have to kppe an old Nokia without camera for my trips to the clients. Invalid argument for my usage habits.

"Also, time after time I have seen people here in recent weeks claim to be disappointed in the dropping of BIS in Blackberry 10 over the "roaming charge" issue, only to have someone who lives in the same country they do come along and point out that they weren't knowledgeable of the lower priced billing options available to them."

Please, tell me, how to cut roaming costs in Hungary under the costs of a simple BIS monthly fee, and I will send you a bottle of my favorite wine, Bock's Tinta (a classic red wine, heavy and fruity).

"It all seems a little strange to me."

Strange is to fix something that isn't broken. Make it an option. Make it a choice. But don't cancel it. Or cancel it, and live with some less users. Not fine for me, but apparently fine for BB. I will have to live with an Android phone and a VPN to my home server than.

[Omnitech]

Thank you for this! Some straight answers to what many percieve as a bad move on BBRY's part, You've helped answer some of my questions

Glad it helped, enjoy.

[Omnitech]

Listen to yourself and do just that. Again everything is opinion or speculation. You say things don't work, someone else says they do. Toss a coin.

Pity none of you saw the back/forth we had on someone else's BIS thread about this, where Bob repeatedly accused me of lying and making things up because I wouldn't agree with his not particularly technically astute opinion on the matter.

I will state again here, it is my opinion and guess, that all that indicator has EVER been is an indication that your tunnel back to the RIM back-end BIS network was up.

In the days prior to BB10, that indeed meant you didn't have any access to much of anything internet-wise, because RIM routed all internet traffic through BIS, more or less.

With BB10, it should not affect anything, to my knowledge, other than BBM and perhaps BES.

The fact that some people notice a correlation between "oh noes, email stopped working" and "oh loookie, no BB indicator" is just that: a correlation. Basic rule of science: correlation is not automatically causation.

Most likely what is happening is that the indicator simply extinguishes when your IP layer dies or stops communicating for some reason, whether it be radio signal loss, some sort of routing issue on your carrier's network, tower handoff, or whatever. You can't have an active IP tunnel somewhere with no IP connectivity. That event would of course coincide with a loss of internet access to everything else. IP layer dies = no internet.

You can of course also have perfectly good internet connectivity with BB10 without the BB indicator being on. Case in point: "BIS" outage or other BB NOC problems. (I "quote" BIS because this sort of "BIS" is a much more narrow sort of service than "legacy BIS")

[creacrea]

Anyway, when i'm in roaming and use internet, i have internet cost like 10 times less then my friends with android or iphone,

[dejongj]

Anyway, when i'm in roaming and use internet, i have internet cost like 10 times less then my friends with android or iphone,

That is not bis dependent. That depends on what data plan or I should say actually overall contract you have. I have exactly the same costs whether I am in my country or whether I am abroad. I can use my allowance of minutes voice, SMS messages and gigabytes of data.

Nothing to do with the phone or his, everything to do with the plans offered by your carrier. Sure the bis plan may include it but that doesn't mean other plans don't include it.

Posted via CB10

[Harry_III_UK]

...But 4G LTE web-browsing power would have been severely crippled if web traffic had to be routed, as traditional Blackberries did, through BIS.

Brilliant post - thank you.

Excellent point about BIS and 4G too - I hadn't considered that before, but you're right.

[pgiguere]

My reason for sticking with BB while continuing to be bused by my android and iPhone toting collogues(!) is that BIS
is a world wide service allowing me to collect mail anywhere for no roaming charges. I was recently in Russia, Germany,
France and Belgium over a four week trip. My data roaming bill for the entire time was $3.52. My collogue that was
traveling with me had a bill over $350.00! Since I am an independent business owner that travels overseas often, the
lack of BIS is just too expensive for me. I am sure that there are a large number of other users in the same boat, so to
speak.

I would gladly tolerate slower internet browsing and save several thousand dollars annually.

[Richard Buckley]

My reason for sticking with BB while continuing to be bused by my android and iPhone toting collogues(!) is that BIS
is a world wide service allowing me to collect mail anywhere for no roaming charges. I was recently in Russia, Germany,
France and Belgium over a four week trip. My data roaming bill for the entire time was $3.52. My collogue that was
traveling with me had a bill over $350.00! Since I am an independent business owner that travels overseas often, the
lack of BIS is just too expensive for me. I am sure that there are a large number of other users in the same boat, so to
speak.

I would gladly tolerate slower internet browsing and save several thousand dollars annually.

Again that is not a BIS thing, it is a contract thing. My last trip to the UK cost me $800 for 2 weeks.

Posted via CB10

[Omnitech]

Again that is not a BIS thing, it is a contract thing. My last trip to the UK cost me $800 for 2 weeks.

Correct, you can't blame BlackBerry for that.

The economics of providing data service have changed enormously the last few years, and you can't expect carriers to, for example, keep giving people free data service when those people are expecting to use 10x more data than they used just a few years ago.

In some places in the world some carriers still have special Blackberry or "BIS" plans - even though technically for Blackberry 10, there is no separate "BIS" service any more. But Blackberry has worked with some carriers to offer aggressive price plans, ie with free BBM and so on. In that respect they are still ahead of what the competition typically offers.

[mad33man]

BlackBerry 7 is still available. Keep BIS. Smile.

Posted via CB10

[Richard Buckley]

Correct, you can't blame BlackBerry for that.

The economics of providing data service have changed enormously the last few years, and you can't expect carriers to, for example, keep giving people free data service when those people are expecting to use 10x more data than they used just a few years ago.

In some places in the world some carriers still have special Blackberry or "BIS" plans - even though technically for Blackberry 10, there is no separate "BIS" service any more. But Blackberry has worked with some carriers to offer aggressive price plans, ie with free BBM and so on. In that respect they are still ahead of what the competition typically offers.

Not blaming, just saying. I think we can still get unlimited fractional BlackBerry plans. BBM and social media, or email. Never unlimited email and web though. Haven't checked lately but with BBM video those days are probably numbered.

Posted via CB10

[1AlexSu]

Over in Asia, carriers have global unlimited usage on BIS at a fixed price, which work out well for travellers. I can do everything on my BB9900 for unlimited usage.
That's a great plus. Without BIS, the cost of roaming will be exorbitant.
You are lucky if you live in EU, where as a single market, there's no roaming charges!!

Without BIS in Asia, BB is dead

[Omnitech]

Added link at bottom of OP on BIS security "urban legend".

[Chanlion]

Slow.
Post too short

[waterfrontmgmt]

Maybe there is a need for BIS in some countries. But here in the US, the trend is speed. LTE data is a big market that the carriers own. I can't imagine that BlackBerry would want to compete with them any time soon.

Posted via CB10

[Omnitech]

There are urban legends that persist to this day that BIS is somehow a highly secure transport mechanism.

It is not, and RIM/Blackberry itself has pointed this out. In the interest of debunking this popular myth, a few links and quotes which should help clear this up:


PIN encryption keys - Security Note - BlackBerry Messenger - 5.0, 6.0, 7.0
FAQ: BlackBerry Messenger & PIN Messages are NOT Encrypted - BerryReview
Is BlackBerry messaging secure? - DAWN.COM


(Below originally posted 2013-05-04)

The assumption that BIS is some sort of super-secure system is an urban legend. RIM/Blackberry itself has produced documents cautioning users not to make such assumptions. BES has always been the truly secure system, not BIS.

Years ago, it was slightly better than what was common in those days in terms of security, especially when it came to BBM and PIN messaging, at a time when it was completely common for other IM and messaging traffic to be transmitted completely in the clear.

By today's standards, when most of the major services are using SSL/TLS encryption, BIS is actually less secure, and has a whole laundry-list of other unique problems that it creates. Most of the features it had that were once big advantages in the marketplace are no longer a big deal, as the form and method of communications has evolved.

Quoting from RIM/BlackBerry documentation (link below)

All BlackBerry� devices can use the unique PINs of other BlackBerry devices to send them PIN-to-PIN
messages (including BlackBerry� Messenger messages). A PIN message bypasses the BlackBerry�
Internet Service, making it useful in the event that the BlackBerry Internet Service is temporarily
unavailable to process emails. The user may add a contact to BlackBerry Messenger using the contact's
unique PIN if the contact is also using a BlackBerry device. Instant messages that are sent using the PIN
of the contact's device also use the PIN message scrambling model.

Note: Due to its direct peer-to-peer messaging model, PIN messages use a low strength data scrambling
model. Every BlackBerry device uses the same key to scramble PIN messages it sends and unscramble
PIN messages it receives. This means that if a BlackBerry device user other than the intended recipient
receives a PIN message, that user can decrypt and read the PIN message automatically.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110709...001-4.0-US.pdf



Quoting BlackBerry KnowledgeBase article 3652 (link below)

Email messages sent between the BlackBerry Internet Service and the BlackBerry Internet Service subscriber's BlackBerry smartphone are not encrypted. When transmitted over the wireless network, the email messages are subject to the existing or available network security model(s).

KB03652-Comparing BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Server features

[Omnitech]

I may incorporate some material from the posts linked below in the FAQ when I have a bit more time.

Post 1
Post 2

[Omnitech]

Just wanted to post a quote, in support of my contention that carriers these days would rather see BIS go away than stay, from the person who signed BlackBerry's last carrier agreement with T-Mobile in the USA. (BlackBerry has just indicated they are not renewing that contract after this month)

---

"The end of the licensing agreement may not be as significant to either T-Mobile or BlackBerry as it once would have been, said Michael Cote, a former sales executive for T-Mobile who says he signed the original supply agreement with T-Mobile in 2001.

“The driving factor for T-Mobile was probably the lack of volume in sales, combined with the fact that there’s an additional service fee,” said Cote, who’s now a managing partner with RapiDemand Corp., a Chicago-based technology M&A finance and advisory company."

---

Source:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-02/blackberry-to-end-sales-contract-with-t-mobile-after-spat.html

[AWDragon200]

So if BIS was such a high margin source of revenue for BlackBerry, why did they eliminate it for BB10. Was it technical reasons? Pressure from carriers to dump BIS fees?


Posted via CB10

[qwerty4ever]

So if BIS was such a high margin source of revenue for BlackBerry, why did they eliminate it for BB10. Was it technical reasons? Pressure from carriers to dump BIS fees?


Posted via CB10

The wireless carriers wanted the BIS plan eliminated because it worked too well compressing data traffic.

Posted via CB10 on BlackBerry Q5

[joeldf]

So if BIS was such a high margin source of revenue for BlackBerry, why did they eliminate it for BB10. Was it technical reasons? Pressure from carriers to dump BIS fees?


Posted via CB10

It's hard to say. No real answer was ever given.

We did hear during the original development of the QNX mobile OS for the PlayBook that the existing BES would not work with it. It was part of the reason the original PlayBook OS came out with no email client - or any of the PIM services. BlackBerry had to develop a totally separate BES system to eventually work with BB10 and system administrators had to run two versions of BES to cover the legacy BlackBerrys and the BB10 BlackBerrys.

But BIS was a different animal. We got conflicting information about it prior to the release of BB10. At first, some regional BlackBerry manager somewhere said that BIS would continue. Then, right before the official reveal of BB10 on N.Y., there was a statement from BlackBerry that BIS was not going to be used or supported by the new phones using BB10.

But there was never any actual explanation from BlackBerry about why.

There was a long thread here in the forums with strong opinionated arguments back and forth that seemed to last for several months. I even participated with a few comments and questions. I didn't think I'd like to lose it. But, as it turned out, I don't miss it a bit.

However, I can see a use for it for certain IMAP/pop3 email functionality. I just don't know if that kind of integration was just simply not possible. Maybe... maybe not.

Posted via CB10

[anon(5818411)]

I do miss BIS with my 500mb data plan but now I have the fastest HTML5 browser of all phones on my Z30 and im loving itttt

Posted via CB10

[Omnitech]

So if BIS was such a high margin source of revenue for BlackBerry, why did they eliminate it for BB10. Was it technical reasons? Pressure from carriers to dump BIS fees?

Did you read the first post?

You start out with a premise: "If BIS was such a high margin source of revenue..."

Where did you come up with that premise?

I don't think there's much question - as the post I made earlier today demonstrates - that many carriers are tired of paying fees to Blackberry in order to support their customers. They do not have to do this for other platforms. (Including BlackBerry 10) So that now potentially becomes a liability, rather than a benefit to the company. At a time when BlackBerry was the dominant smartphone player it helped to set them apart from their competitors, but now that their marketshare has dropped so low it's not surprising that carriers are not very interested in continuing to make extraordinary accomodations in order to support their customers.

I should probably re-write or at least update the first post because there have been a number of changes in both BlackBerry's market position as well as the market overall, and we now know a bit more about their long-term plans than we did at the time I wrote it. For example, BlackBerry is now dropping support for all legacy OS platforms earlier than v7/7.1.

[Omnitech]

The wireless carriers wanted the BIS plan eliminated because it worked too well compressing data traffic.

And you base that opinion on what actual evidence?