[detour]

Finally if you are on AT&T the BlackBerry Bridge will be made available today in App World. The catch is, like everything AT&T, you will not be able to use the Bridge Browser unless you have a tethering data plan. But all your other PIM goodness can now be on your PlayBook!

[uci2ci]

but we already have the ota download link

[eds817]

AT&T sucks! I better start looking somewhere else for when the merger becomes final.

[therapyreject174]

Screw you ATT. "Just received for testing" my ***. We all knew you were looking for a way to block it.

[uci2ci]

theres still no word what is really going to be announced....so lets wait. some rim employee just twittered something along the lines of ATT going to announce something at noon tomorrow regarding the playbook afaik

[kb5zht]

Screw you ATT. "Just received for testing" my ***. We all knew you were looking for a way to block it.

I also didnt buy that load of crap when i read it. The saddest part is how blatant of a lie it was. Nobody believed them.

Sure enough now we see the proof. Thats all they were doing, trying to find a way to manipulate it. ...if i were on your crappy "drop calls every 5 minutes" network i sure wouldnt stay on principal alone now. I only wish more customers not aware of crackberry could get that ota link and blow you off and get data for free just to spite you.

"just received for testing" huh? ...

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[drethos]

meh i got the full ota download. as long as they dont block my bridge browser i wont have a problem. greedy companies suck..... witch is all big business.

[lawguyman]

I have no doubt that AT&T will want to charge extra for brdge browsing but has it been confirmed that this is the case or is it still just speculation?

[Altarocks]

I can't figure out what the OP is saying. Yeah, ATT customers couldn't get Bridge in App World, but OTA has always been available. And works fine while requiring no fee.

There is an easy and effective workaround that has been shared since about the time Bridge became available. Nothing new here other than it now appearing in App World - why start more negative threads??

[greggebhardt]

Why would you people think it would be free?

It IS tethering and they have ALWAYS charged for tethering.

Don't go to that "Unlimited Data Crap", that was for your smart phone.

ALL the carriers will be charging for this sooner or later, our FCC has given them full permission to charge extra for more bandwidth.

[kbz1960]

I wonder why movie rental companies don't charge for each device your going to play the movie on. I know it's different but the same. We kind of rent the data like renting a movie. We can play the movie on 10 different devices with no extra charge as we are not using more movies, it's the same movie.

But with renting our data we can only use that data on one device or they charge more for the same data. If I rent 1gb of data and use 500mb do I get anything back? No. If I rent that same 1gb of data and only use 500mb but use 2 devices to get that 500mb of data then they want to charge me more.

That's a great ripoff for consumers and great cash cow for the carriers.

[SlcCorrado]

Its been said a few times, but anyone on att that's wants bridged browsing can have it. Download over the air. Links are everywhere

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[lnichols]

Definitely won't be switching to AT&T. I think I'll send a letter to FCC and Dan Hesse telling them this is a prime example of what AT&T brings to the table, ... poor network, high prices, and gouging. Really sucks because I want to move away from Sprint, I don't want to switch to Verizon because of CDMA either and LTE is not there yet and their pricing sucks too, and T-Mobile was what I'm looking at.

[Mojoski]

Finally if you are on AT&T the BlackBerry Bridge will be made available today in App World. The catch is, like everything AT&T, you will not be able to use the Bridge Browser unless you have a tethering data plan. But all your other PIM goodness can now be on your PlayBook!

So can you link us to a source where this is confirmed? I'm not seeing this info anywhere else on the web. What is your source?

At this point my Bridge Browser still works on AT&T.. Slow as ever, but it works..

[kb5zht]

Why would you people think it would be free?

It IS tethering and they have ALWAYS charged for tethering.

Don't go to that "Unlimited Data Crap", that was for your smart phone.

ALL the carriers will be charging for this sooner or later, our FCC has given them full permission to charge extra for more bandwidth.

...

So, tell me Mr. Genius, if the data plan you paid for is for your phone only.... Then tell me where else the data is going? your smartphone! which then relays it to your tablet. Why do you think the people in these forums will agree to paying for the same realestate twice?

When you buy root beer and go home and mix it with ice cream to make a float, does A & W send you another bill?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[SlcCorrado]

Definitely won't be switching to AT&T. I think I'll send a letter to FCC and Dan Hesse telling them this is a prime example of what AT&T brings to the table, ... poor network, high prices, and gouging. Really sucks because I want to move away from Sprint, I don't want to switch to Verizon because of CDMA either and LTE is not there yet and their pricing sucks too, and T-Mobile was what I'm looking at.

Hate to break it to ya, but sprint is CDMA. Also, having both att and verizon, I can honestly say without LTE, in a populated area, you will get about the same service. That and cdma chipsets not being able to play two tones at once is annoying.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Maddogmsd]

As much as I dislike some of ATT's practices especially with this whole bridge fiasco, I used to wonder why they would charge for something like tethering now that they have gotten away from the unlimited plans, but I realized that its because 2GB of data isnt just 2GB of data because when you tether (not including bridge thats a little different) it allows you to consume much higher bandwidth at that specific time which puts a bigger strain on the network which makes it so they have to have more towers/servers to handle the load.

Now having said that, to me bridge is different because you arent just using your phones connection, you are actually using your phones browser its more so akin to if you have your blackberry hooked up to a touch screen monitor, so the bandwidth usage is going to be more in line with what your phone can "normally" so it isnt putting any different kind of strain on the network.

[lawguyman]

If the carriers were smart, they would view Bridge Browsing as an opportunity to sell bundles of phones, dataplans and Playbooks.

Data is still capped for most people and people are aware of limitations. So, most people sip data on the cell network. If not, they get hit with big surcharges, which the carriers love.

[Foreverup]

Why would you people think it would be free?

It IS tethering and they have ALWAYS charged for tethering.

Don't go to that "Unlimited Data Crap", that was for your smart phone.

ALL the carriers will be charging for this sooner or later, our FCC has given them full permission to charge extra for more bandwidth.

Oh the great tethering debate.

The bridge browser is not tethering. It does not assign an IP address to your playbook. There are no service books attached to it. Basically, you are displaying the information from your phone on to the playbook. Your BIS or BES connection is still going through the same filter ATT to the NOC then compressed and to your phone then your phone displays through bluetooth on your playbook.

Also, rememeber that ATT is the same company that charges an extra plan to the Android Atrix phone because it does more.

[kbz1960]

As much as I dislike some of ATT's practices especially with this whole bridge fiasco, I used to wonder why they would charge for something like tethering now that they have gotten away from the unlimited plans, but I realized that its because 2GB of data isnt just 2GB of data because when you tether (not including bridge thats a little different) it allows you to consume much higher bandwidth at that specific time which puts a bigger strain on the network which makes it so they have to have more towers/servers to handle the load.

Now having said that, to me bridge is different because you arent just using your phones connection, you are actually using your phones browser its more so akin to if you have your blackberry hooked up to a touch screen monitor, so the bandwidth usage is going to be more in line with what your phone can "normally" so it isnt putting any different kind of strain on the network.

How is that different from a data/bandwidth sucking 4g phone that someone is downloading/streaming videos/movies all day long? Do they charge extra for that, yes but not as much as they want to rip you off for tethering.

So when you use the bridge you do not get flash on flash enabled websites? If you do you are not using your bb's browser.

[SlcCorrado]

If the carriers were smart, they would view Bridge Browsing as an opportunity to sell bundles of phones, dataplans and Playbooks.

Data is still capped for most people and people are aware of limitations. So, most people sip data on the cell network. If not, they get hit with big surcharges, which the carriers love.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with those statements

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[xandermac]

The question is, will they have a way to block the workaround? Strikes me AT&T won't know if you're bridge browsing, but rim probably does. ... RIM is would they report this usage to AT&T?

If AT&T can block the Bridge Browser they've effectively taken away the only unique feature of the PlayBook and a big selling feature. The Bridge would then merely be a PIM crutch.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Foreverup]

The question is, will they have a way to block the workaround? Strikes me AT&T won't know if you're bridge browsing, but rim probably does. ... RIM is would they report this usage to AT&T?

If AT&T can block the Bridge Browser they've effectively taken away the only unique feature of the PlayBook and a big selling feature. The Bridge would then merely be a PIM crutch.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I truly don't think RIM would know either if you downloaded via the OTA here, it's not like the bridge app shows up in my app world. They could report I own a playbook.

[SlcCorrado]

The question is, will they have a way to block the workaround? Strikes me AT&T won't know if you're bridge browsing, but rim probably does. Considering how far up AT&Ts *** RIM is would they report this usage to AT&T?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

And the answer is probably no. Its not even really a workaround if you think about it. You download the same app as everyone else, just from a different source. Also, RIM did us a solid (and were actually quite sneaky) by routing the bridge browser differently as to make it harder to detect.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[TBone4eva]

It actually has to do with bandwidth, not data, but your average consumer doesn't understand bandwidth and trying to throttle everyone's connection would be a network nightmare so they use data caps. AT&T or any other carrier couldn't give a **** how much data you use if the bandwidth is low. Sure you are using the same data, but you're not pulling it in huge chunks viewing mobile sites a phone like you're able to viewing full blown sites and video while connected to a PB.

This is nothing new, heck, back when I was in college we had data caps because of all the P2P music downloading and stuff and once you were over the limit, you got busted down to 56k modem speeds. People don't seem to understand that bandwidth is not unlimited nor is radio spectrum. The more you use, the more is unavailable for others to use and carriers have to make sure that there is enough bandwidth for all to use. That is one of the major reasons why AT&T is buying T-mobile, they need the extra bandwidth.