[lnichols]

Part of the issue I have with Blackberry is the BIS slows Internet requests down a lot because of added delay and what I think is limited capacity imposed by the BIS and RIM NOC. The Blackberry browser on the phone is so god awful that I'm usually just pissed looking at the page more than how ridiculously slow the loading of the page was. Now with the PlayBook, there will be a great browser and processor handling it delivering a "full web experience", but it will still have to go though the BIS (or BES if you are a BES user) when tethered. Am I going to be wanting to throw the Playbook across the room when I get HTTP 504 errors on the first 4 attempts to click the link and the 5th click miraculously works?

[dkingsf]

Part of the issue I have with Blackberry is the BIS slows Internet requests down a lot because of added delay and what I think is limited capacity imposed by the BIS and RIM NOC. The Blackberry browser on the phone is so god awful that I'm usually just pissed looking at the page more than how ridiculously slow the loading of the page was. Now with the PlayBook, there will be a great browser and processor handling it delivering a "full web experience", but it will still have to go though the BIS (or BES if you are a BES user) when tethered. Am I going to be wanting to throw the Playbook across the room when I get HTTP 504 errors on the first 4 attempts to click the link and the 5th click miraculously works?

That should all change with 4G (LTE with Verizon). Most of that is really from the wireless network speeds rather than the BIS/BES servers, I think.

EDIT: Caveat - If you buy one of the 1st tethered (non-3G/4G) models, you will have to upgrade your BB.

[1812dave]

Part of the issue I have with Blackberry is the BIS slows Internet requests down a lot because of added delay and what I think is limited capacity imposed by the BIS and RIM NOC. The Blackberry browser on the phone is so god awful that I'm usually just pissed looking at the page more than how ridiculously slow the loading of the page was. Now with the PlayBook, there will be a great browser and processor handling it delivering a "full web experience", but it will still have to go though the BIS (or BES if you are a BES user) when tethered. Am I going to be wanting to throw the Playbook across the room when I get HTTP 504 errors on the first 4 attempts to click the link and the 5th click miraculously works?

ASSUMING that what YOU claim is true, perhaps a PB isnt for you, as the damage won't be covered by the warranty.

[Roo Zilla]

That should all change with 4G (LTE with Verizon). Most of that is really from the wireless network speeds rather than the BIS/BES servers, I think.

Not really. Anandtech tested a Torch recently and they say a lot of the time is waiting for the RIM servers to load, compress, and send the webpages to the device, about 10 seconds on average.

"Regardless, there’s just no getting around the fact that the Torch does load pages slower than the competition, but the reason is ironic - it’s slower because of time spent waiting for content to be compressed and sent down over BlackBerry internet services. Watching the Tx and Rx indicators on the Torch and taking some times down, it’s obvious that on average, about 10 seconds is spent waiting for the first real page data to load. This is entirely just overhead time spent waiting for BlackBerry’s servers to load the page, compress images and data, and then send it down.

If you’re not familiar, BlackBerry devices transact virtually all data over their own encrypted and compressed link to either RIM with BIS, or BES for enterprise customers. Think of it like a VPN, and you’ll understand. The result is that carriers can’t snoop on your traffic, and things like BBM (PIN) messages are given a level of encryption and security that plain SMS isn’t, but the downside is that the added latency makes loading things over 3G or WiFi slower than devices that connect directly to the internet. You can see how BIS compresses images when looking at things with gradients like PNG graph images from our benchmarks, for example."

BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review: Keeping RIM's Flame Alive - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

!

[lnichols]

That should all change with 4G (LTE with Verizon). Most of that is really from the wireless network speeds rather than the BIS/BES servers, I think.

EDIT: Caveat - If you buy one of the 1st tethered (non-3G/4G) models, you will have to upgrade your BB.

Nope, if you look at Android phones or other phones with a decent browser on Sprint they load pages fast, at least in NoVA. Your adding encryption/decryption processing, compression, and tunneling your traffic to the NOC with BIS, and then from the NOC your sharing all that bandwidth with every other blackberry BIS user in the US trying to get out to the Internet. I wish there was an option to bypass the BIS for the Internet browser as its my personal phone, that and a better browser would fix the issue.

[taylortbb]

Not really. Anandtech tested a Torch recently and they say a lot of the time is waiting for the RIM servers to load, compress, and send the webpages to the device, about 10 seconds on average.

Anandtech got that wrong. RIM has said that over WiFi the WebKit browser doesn't go through BIS. You can see the selection process article in the BlackBerry KB, KB23699-Simplified browser selection in BlackBerry Device Software 6.0 . Unless overridden or required for BES the top choice is direct WiFi, not BIS.

The upside is this means it can be sped up, the iPhone 3G S has similar processing power to the Torch.

[Slavex]

I'm just trying to sort out how a wifi connection could be forced to go through RIMs servers?

[JRSCCivic98]

I'm just trying to sort out how a wifi connection could be forced to go through RIMs servers?

WIFI, and any other function on a BB for that matter, is Service Book based. Each Service Book is an instructional set that tells the BB how to function. If the SB is written to for a tunnel to RIM's NOC, that's the way it'll send traffic first.

[Xopher]

Worried? No. If it is going to save me $30/month by not having to have a separate data plan for the Playbook, I can wait 10 seconds for a web page.

[slbailey1]

If you’re not familiar, BlackBerry devices transact virtually all data over their own encrypted and compressed link to either RIM with BIS, or BES for enterprise customers.

I'm not familiar with Blackberry devices. I have a Droid Incredible phone and don't plan to switch anytime soon. I'm looking at getting a tablet next year, WiFi only and using my Droid's hotspot when needed - WiFi thru my router at home and my Droid's WiFi hotspot at work or at my mom's.

This Blackberry Playbook is at the top of my list along with an Android tablet and WebOS tablet.

I have some questions:

1. Will I have access to the internet without going thru RIM?
2. Will I be able to setup my hosted Exchange (Sherweb) and gmail (IMAP) accounts to sync my email and calender.
3. How will I get apps on the Playbook and website do I have to monitor to know what apps are available?

Edit: I have one more question - Will the Playbook Web browser support Silverlight? I would love to fully utilize MS Office Web apps and my Skydrive?

[taylortbb]

1. Will I have access to the internet without going thru RIM?
2. Will I be able to setup my hosted Exchange (Sherweb) and gmail (IMAP) accounts to sync my email and calender.
3. How will I get apps on the Playbook and website do I have to monitor to know what apps are available?

Edit: I have one more question - Will the Playbook Web browser support Silverlight? I would love to fully utilize MS Office Web apps and my Skydrive?

1. Over WiFi you shouldn't have any issues, just don't expect to Bluetooth tether to anything other than a BlackBerry.
2. No one knows at this point. RIM hasn't said. No current BlackBerry has the ability to do this without using RIM's push services, but a lot of things are different about the PlayBook.
(Haven't I answered those two questions from you in previous threads?
3. No one knows for sure, but I'd say it's a pretty safe bet there will be App World for PlayBook. Anything else would be absurd.
4. No one knows, RIM hasn't said. The only official Silverlight is for Windows and Mac. Linux has Moonlight which would likely be easy to port to QNX though. No one knows if third party plugins will be possible, but I wouldn't be surprised. I'd put a 70% chance on it being technically possible, still requires a dev to do the work.

[crazy canuck]

long technical post not for the faint of heart...

okay here is the deal. There are 3 stacks (that i know of, there might be more) on the blackberry for various uses. they are

tcp/mdp/udp
http/mdp/udp
tcp/ip

The issue is all bb traffic back to the RIM NOC is UDP based. ie all BIS browsing and BIS messaging goes to the NOC irrelevant of connection on the BB (2G vs 3G vs Wifi). The BIS browser traffic gets transcoded into a proprietary RIM format goes to the NOC and gets decoded. then a RIM server makes a real http connection to the webserver (google or cnn or msn or whatever website you are going to). Once the RIM server gets the response, it must transcode the response into the proprietary format again and retransmit to the BB browser.
This is why sometimes browsing via wifi doesn't 'seem' much faster than 3G. It is the same BS at the RIM NOC irrelevant of how it got there. (although the purists will argue the latency is less for wifi versus going through the air so yes it could shave off 1 second or so...)
The bottom line is any RIM service like BBM, BIS email BIS browsing etc is all UDP based and must go through the RIM NOC.

For 3rd party apps they can take advantage of the tcp/ip stack on the BB. then the traffic can go from your router to the internet because it is IP based traffic.
This traffic does not need to go through the RIM NOC.

For those of you who read all this way here is the finale. If the playbook is indeed a full http1.1 compliant browser (ie nothing proprietary) then the browser on the playbook can use the tcp/ip stack on the BB and it should have the same speed as the ipad and android tablets when connected on wifi. (If not and it hangs on to its UDP based proprietary protocol then yes you can go all Pete Townshend on the Playbook...and start throwing it around)

whew...and I am spent. take 5, smoke em if you got them...

[1812dave]

long technical post not for the faint of heart...

okay here is the deal. There are 3 stacks (that i know of, there might be more) on the blackberry for various uses. they are

tcp/mdp/udp
http/mdp/udp
tcp/ip

The issue is all bb traffic back to the RIM NOC is UDP based. ie all BIS browsing and BIS messaging goes to the NOC irrelevant of connection on the BB (2G vs 3G vs Wifi). The BIS browser traffic gets transcoded into a proprietary RIM format goes to the NOC and gets decoded. then a RIM server makes a real http connection to the webserver (google or cnn or msn or whatever website you are going to). Once the RIM server gets the response, it must transcode the response into the proprietary format again and retransmit to the BB browser.
This is why sometimes browsing via wifi doesn't 'seem' much faster than 3G. It is the same BS at the RIM NOC irrelevant of how it got there. (although the purists will argue the latency is less for wifi versus going through the air so yes it could shave off 1 second or so...)
The bottom line is any RIM service like BBM, BIS email BIS browsing etc is all UDP based and must go through the RIM NOC.

For 3rd party apps they can take advantage of the tcp/ip stack on the BB. then the traffic can go from your router to the internet because it is IP based traffic.
This traffic does not need to go through the RIM NOC.

For those of you who read all this way here is the finale. If the playbook is indeed a full http1.1 compliant browser (ie nothing proprietary) then the browser on the playbook can use the tcp/ip stack on the BB and it should have the same speed as the ipad and android tablets when connected on wifi. (If not and it hangs on to its UDP based proprietary protocol then yes you can go all Pete Townshend on the Playbook...and start throwing it around)

whew...and I am spent. take 5, smoke em if you got them...

well, I can sure vouch for the fact that wifi access doesn't improve my dreadful browser experience on my S2. thanks for the explanation. (now pardon me while I go google "NOC" and "UDP".) EDIT: network operations center? user datagram protocol?

[taylortbb]

all BIS browsing and BIS messaging goes to the NOC irrelevant of connection on the BB (2G vs 3G vs Wifi). The BIS browser traffic gets transcoded into a proprietary RIM format goes to the NOC and gets decoded. then a RIM server makes a real http connection to the webserver (google or cnn or msn or whatever website you are going to). Once the RIM server gets the response, it must transcode the response into the proprietary format again and retransmit to the BB browser.

You are correct... for OS5 and earlier. OS6 the browser makes a direct connection when on WiFi. We don't know exactly how it works over BIS, but I speculate the RIM patent for a compressing proxy is the answer.

(now pardon me while I go google "NOC" and "UDP".) EDIT: network operations center? user datagram protocol?

That is correct.

[Totalimmortal363]

That should all change with 4G (LTE with Verizon). Most of that is really from the wireless network speeds rather than the BIS/BES servers, I think

EDIT: Caveat - If you buy one of the 1st tethered (non-3G/4G) models, you will have to upgrade your BB.

You think huh?

Why can I pull up websites in my iPhone grossly faster than I can on the Torch? Just yesterday had a customer that wanted to do a side by side with the iPhone 4 and the Torch for a specific website he used for teaching. So I cleared all the browser histories and caches on both and let em' rip. Both on 3G, the iPhone had the site up before the Torch could finish "requesting". RIM servers slow data down considerably.

[bacon.jay]

I really don't know what the fuss is all about with this topic of discussion.

When I tether to my laptop with my Bold, it takes about 4 seconds for a webpage to load, even from the basement den in my grandmother's house.

[dLo GSR]

I really don't know what the fuss is all about with this topic of discussion.

When I tether to my laptop with my Bold, it takes about 4 seconds for a webpage to load, even from the basement den in my grandmother's house.

your data isn't going through BIS in that case.

[bacon.jay]

How would it not? And if that's the case, why would tethering to the Playbook be any different than tethering to a laptop?

[taylortbb]

How would it not?

Carriers have multiple APNs (routes to other networks basically). BlackBerry services go through blackberry.net, this is true on any carrier. It's special in that it has RIM's proprietary push technology, etc. Only users on BlackBerry plans have access to this APN. Your carrier also has an APN which provides direct internet access, for me that's internet.com, if your carrier isn't Rogers it's something else. When tethering you use the direct internet access APN. Routing it via RIM doesn't make sense when you don't need any of the push services.

[Erandhawa]

Part of the issue I have with Blackberry is the BIS slows Internet requests down a lot because of added delay and what I think is limited capacity imposed by the BIS and RIM NOC. The Blackberry browser on the phone is so god awful that I'm usually just pissed looking at the page more than how ridiculously slow the loading of the page was. Now with the PlayBook, there will be a great browser and processor handling it delivering a "full web experience", but it will still have to go though the BIS (or BES if you are a BES user) when tethered. Am I going to be wanting to throw the Playbook across the room when I get HTTP 504 errors on the first 4 attempts to click the link and the 5th click miraculously works?

I haven't been experiencing this problem on my torch...i wonder if its been addressed in the 6.x os and thats y i am not seeing this occur. Also qnx is a completely different operating system so i am assuming as long as the network is stable (which i haven't really experience any instability since getting the torch) there shouldn't be any issues.

[bacon.jay]

Carriers have multiple APNs (routes to other networks basically). BlackBerry services go through blackberry.net, this is true on any carrier. It's special in that it has RIM's proprietary push technology, etc. Only users on BlackBerry plans have access to this APN. Your carrier also has an APN which provides direct internet access, for me that's internet.com, if your carrier isn't Rogers it's something else. When tethering you use the direct internet access APN. Routing it via RIM doesn't make sense when you don't need any of the push services.

I suppose that this would still be a necessity, but it would be great to have the option of going directly to the web through the carriers' "APN" as you said.

[si_chindo]

Doesn't BIS compress the data so that it becomes smaller and therefore end up being just as quick to download?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[JRSCCivic98]

Personally, being able to tether a tablet to my existing phone and use its existing data plan without paying more is very appealing to me. Why should I pay for another service account when I already have one? Cell carriers already charge too much as it is for voice/data services on smartphones. I'd like to frack over the man for once, instead of always being the one getting....

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com