@Smejk: I'm sorry, but AR 25-yadda yadda is the only answer there is. The Army actively blocks connections from the BlackBerry Internet Service to their mail servers. From time to time, the BIS server may start working on a different IP, but as soon as they realize it they will block it.
The reason it works on your wife's iPhone is a difference in the way the two phones get email.
The iPhone (along with the Pre, Android based phone, Windows Mobile Phone, and pretty much every phone except the BlackBerry) retrieves messages itself. You tell it the IMAP or POP settings (including username and password) and it stores all those settings locally on the phone. Every once in a while, the phone logs into the remote server and checks for new email. This is permissible by AR 25-yadda yadda.
With the BlackBerry, on the other hand, you log into the BIS server and configure it to check your email. Your settings (including the username and password) get stored on the BIS server. Every now and then, the server checks for new email and if it finds some, it sends the messages down to your phone. AR 25-yadda yadda says that you cannot give your password to anybody. That includes giving it to Research In Motion in order for them to check your email for you.
I know this isn't the answer you wanted, but sometimes there's only one possible answer. As I recall, regulations also prohibit using AKO for any confidential (let alone classified!!) information transmission, so I don't know why they need to be so particular about your AKO password. Between the complexity requirements, the early expiration and silly prohibitions like this one they're making it near impossible for the average soldier to be able to, let alone want to, use AKO for anything. I've seen communication at the platoon and squad level (I was a Reservist) go much smoother using 3rd party mediums like Facebook or normal email than it ever went using AKO... and somehow the Army still thinks their "security regulations" make sense.
02-22-10 11:01 AM