[SMCGroup]

Hi guys,


I signed up to this forum because i have a crackberry (lol) and have always wondered how the **** the instant messenger service works.

Since I was a young-en i have had a thirst for knowledge and thus my need for finding out how stuff works.

I kinda understand all the user-side stuff, but want to understand more about the technology involved and what goes on in the back end.

Anyone know this?

Any directions / knowledge is formidably appreciated


Andy.

[Reed McLay]

BlackBerry - Internet Service Support

About adding email addresses
When you add a supported email address to the BlackBerry� Internet Service, the BlackBerry Internet Service creates a link between the
BlackBerry Internet Service and the email account that is associated with the email address you have added.
This link enables you to send and receive email messages on your BlackBerry device using the integrated email address. With the BlackBerry
Internet Service, you can add up to ten supported email addresses and you can create one BlackBerry email address. If you add email addresses
for more than one email account to the BlackBerry Internet Service, you can access all of your email messages in the main message list on your
device.
Email messages continue to be delivered to the existing email account as they were before you added the email address to the BlackBerry
Internet Service.
You can add email addresses that are associated with the following email account types to the BlackBerry Internet Service:
• email accounts that you access through your Internet service provider
• POP or IMAP email accounts that you access through your Internet service provider
• email accounts that use aMicrosoft� Exchange server that you access using Microsoft� Outlook� Web Access
Note: Depending on your email service provider, you might not be able to add email addresses that are associated with certain email account
types. For more information, contact your email service provider. Not all devices with BlackBerry� Connect™ software support more than one
email address.
...

Here is a good starting place.... right from the horses mouth.

[JRSCCivic98]

Reed, I don't think the diagram above is correct, but I could be wrong. There should be another cloud between the wireless network/carrier and the BIS servers (which I believe reside on RIM's network even though they are assigned to specific carriers.

I don't think the carriers actually house their own BIS servers on their networks.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Reed McLay]

Blackberries are not POP3 email clients like other smartphones are. They are not the ones that do the polling of the email accounts to check for messages. The BIS/BES servers are the ones that poll the email accounts and then "push" or handoff the emails to the BB. Remember that the BB originated as a 2 way pager. Back then pager systems would push the message to your pagers, RIM first expanded on that to allow for more text then what a simple pager would do. As time passed and things developed, they made changes to allow for email to work the same way.

This is the main reason why their push system is also their biggest weakness. If the NOC at RIM goes down, you loose all email/browsing capability on the berry, unless you're using something like Opera Mini which uses SOCKS on the IP protocol in the phone to use the carrier's network gateways.

I figured, I should do some fact checking before I reply. Look what Google turned up.

The physical cellular antenna is connected to a wire that terminates at the carriers hardware switches.

Your answer cast some light on the next step. The carrier will likley use a dedicated T1 to the RIM NOC. They were starting with an early '90's design concept, TCP/IP was in it's infancy at that time, DS-1 was King.

Most likley, a hard wire connection carrier to the NOC.

That was about the time my client was upgrading from a telco network to TCP/IP. The improvement in reliability was orders of magnitude better. I suspect you are are correct, now. TCP/IP is an obvious upgrade choice.