[crnz]

Hi

I have a BIS connection with a data plan, and really like the way email zips in after only 15 seconds or so after being sent.

But at certain times during the day, there can be a 15-30 minute delay before I get my email pushed to my phone.

I am in a position to check the mail system logs, and RIM accept the email straight away - but then it takes that long for it to be pushed to my phone.

Question: What is the "normal" delay to expect when someone sends you an email and RIM pushing it to your berry? Is this sort of service level I am experiencing something I should complain about?

It's pretty pointless to get back from somewhere to receive an email telling you to go somewhere else first. SMS gets there almost instantly - so why is BIS push email a 2nd class service? Is this done so you end up using SMS (which is income generating for the carrier!) instead of the flat rate data?

[phantomsax]

If you use business email, get a BES. Delivery time is like 1-2 seconds for me. My BlackBerry goes off before Outlook does 85% of the time. Plus there are 9,999 other good reasons for a BES.

[crnz]

I was anticipating someone would chuck BES in the mix :-) That may very well be the solution. But I'm still interested in other people's experience with email via BIS.

What I am really hoping for is a "yeah, they're having some problems, but when they up their capacity, all will be back to normal".

Could I be that lucky?

[delaen]

Even with BIS, I get all my email within a second or two. Every time.

Not sure why you'd see a delay like that.

The emails I use are Gmail and a work one running on Zimbra. Not sure how that factors in.

[phantomsax]

I might be slightly biased since I am a BES admin, but there really is no substitute. If you are on a private domain, and have your mail server, there really isn't a good reason not to. Cost isn't even an issue anymore since you can get a free BlackBerry Professional Server Express license and single CAL for free.

BlackBerry

[crnz]

I might be slightly biased since I am a BES admin, but there really is no substitute. If you are on a private domain, and have your mail server, there really isn't a good reason not to. Cost isn't even an issue anymore since you can get a free BlackBerry Professional Server Express license and single CAL for free.

BlackBerry

I have to look after enough systems to worry about a single license single user BES server as well...

What I haven't tested yet is if the GMAIL push is similarly delayed. The thing that annoys me is that I can see the email being accepted by RIM, but then.... a delay of some kind.

2 seconds eh. Sometimes being on the arse end of the world sucks.

[phantomsax]

I have to look after enough systems to worry about a single license single user BES server as well...

BPS Express is limited to 30 users, not just 1, and you can easily upgrade to full BES from BPS. Run it in a VM as it takes up almost no overhead and is a PERFECT candidate to run on a VM. You could even run it on an old desktop. It is just a few watcher services and SQL Express or even MSDE.

It is pretty easy to get up and running as long as you follow the online admin install guide, and once it is dialed in, they practically run themselves.

Just sayin... if you are on Lotus or Exchange it is soooooo much better. Plus you get remote control over the users using IT policies, you can lock out lost or stolen phones protecting the data and even perform a remote wipe, and my favorite is the built-in backup and bare metal restore. It restores EVERYTHING to a new berry, down to the last phone call made. Change phones? All you need to do is hop on the BPS/BES and set a new activation password, enter the email address and activation password on the new handheld, and BOOM, device swap done.

I support and admin BES and BPS servers ranging from 1-2 users up to 500 per server. It is all the same and so easy once they are up and running.

[uclugLee]

Here's a non-BES idea.

Create your wireless carriers email address for your smartphone ([email protected] if on Verizon) and then log into your personal email account and have email forwarded to your Blackberry address. That way when anything comes into your personal address it will automatically be forwarded to your bb address. Then log into BIS and change your email signature and reply-to address to match your personal email address.

[Sith_Apprentice]

http://forums.crackberry.com/f3/how-...+does+BIS+work

[Terrigno]

Wow Sith. Great job on that write up. That explains a lot.

[mark-d]

Mine can range from anywhere between a minute and 40 minutes.

In the office I don't have access to POP3 to download mail to Outlook but I can log into the webmail window and see it arriving there. I've got three separate pop3 emails set up on the BB and sometimes my BB gets it quickly but other times there is a massive time delay between the mail hitting the mailbox and the mail hitting my phone which can be quite frustrating.

My girlfriend has her live.co.uk email address set up on her Blackberry and hers is instant. If she's logged on her laptop the mail hits her phone before even the notification she's received a new email comes up in windows live messenger.

She's with Vodafone UK and I'm with Orange UK, don't know if it's the carrier that makes the difference or the fact hers is a live.co.uk address and my three are pop3 emails.

[Hankster]

1-2 seconds for me....though some days the delay is 2-4 hours. I've even had a day or two where the email didn't push at all for 24-48 hours and I had to reset my BB.

[shwy]

I was anticipating someone would chuck BES in the mix :-) That may very well be the solution. But I'm still interested in other people's experience with email via BIS.

What I am really hoping for is a "yeah, they're having some problems, but when they up their capacity, all will be back to normal".

Could I be that lucky?

I'm on BIS and get my email delivered in 5 seconds tops. It's amazing.
I have no problems. I don't know what you mean by "up their capacity", if you tell me what you mean by that I might be able to give you my results with that as well.

EDIT: According to Sith's article, I get mine that fast because all of my accounts are either Yahoo or Gmail.

[crnz]

Here's a non-BES idea.

Create your wireless carriers email address for your smartphone ([email protected] if on Verizon) and then log into your personal email account and have email forwarded to your Blackberry address.

That's what I have done, and it normally takes about 14-15 seconds to receive an email (you can just about count down the seconds until the berry buzzes), but occasionally a delay of up to an hour can occur.

Annoyingly, these delays are always when I need the email within a minute at most. Not really push email that way, is it.

[crnz]

Ok, i have just read Sith's post (great job). I can confirm that the delay I am talking about is with the carrier/RIM supplied BIS email address. So, when I send an email to there, I can see our mailserver connect to the BIS mailserver, hand the email over, and close the connection. Normally, 5-10 seconds later, the email is pushed onto my berry. But other times, even though I can see our mailserver hand over the email, BIS isn't pushing it to my berry for a while (20-30 minutes, sometimes longer). Now, as far as I can see, this can only be because either BIS is having some kind of backlog and are needing time to clear it in a first in first out queue, or the path from RIM/BIS to my carrier and/or to the cell tower I connect to is having capacity issues. (Or, there is a technical problem).

I also have a GMAIL account pushed through BIS, but haven't done any testing with that in parallel. I'll do so to see what the outcome is.

To me, I need my email pushed reliably - this is why I got a berry. If not, I'll have to pop some mailbox every minute or two instead, and that would be a major disappointment.

Thanks for all your feedback so far people - much appreciated.

[alb123]

I found that when I switched my gmail account to IMAP that my delay increased substantially in some cases. I have since switched back to POP, mainly because BlackBerry doesn't truly support full synchronization of gmail accounts. Currently, my gmail can literally take 2-5 seconds to reach my device and my hotmail is very fast as well... Fabulous email service!!

ALB

[crnz]

If you set up a GMAIL account, just a normal one, not with POP nor IMAP, just register, then go to your BIS account and enter the details, then BIS and GMAIL automaticly sort each other out, and it acts like push email - when I test the RIM email and GMAIL email side by side via BIS, there is no difference in delivery speed. Yet. The interesting thing will be to see if one gets there faster than the other when getting delayed. I'll report back on that, as it may provide insight as to what's going on.

[crnz]

Ok, time to report back.

I set up a scheduled job to send an email every 30 minutes between 8am and 8:30pm:

- one directly to my @tnz.blackberry.com address
- one to my gmail.com address which is set up through BIS
- one to my POP mailbox locally

The results have been as interesting as they have been disturbing.

- all emails ended up in my local POP mailbox in less than 10 seconds (as you'd expect - but this is to prove there wasn't a hold-up at the time

- most of the time, the BB and GMAIL emails are delivered in less than 20 seconds of being sent

- 3-5 times a day, and not any specific time of day, both BB and GMAIL emails were delayed. Typically around 15 minutes, but also about 12, 22, etc.

- More recently, the BB one comes in first, and the GMAIL one comes in about 30-60 seconds later (probably reflects the longer path of the GMAIL one - but quite often they arrive at the same time)

- Any readings where I could not be sure I had reception at the time have been removed.


Provisional conclusions

- At certain times, email isn't pushed immediately. As both GMAIL and BB mail are delayed the same amount, this seems to be a problem between the BIS mail server and me.

- If delayed, the most common time for it to come in is 'around' 15 minutes later. Which is interesting, if you read the Sith post about the BIS timings.


I'm not sure if all this has got me any further, other than to be able to conclude that the delays are internal to the BIS service.

I'm going to set up a test where I will send an email every 10 minutes for a day. As the Sith document states that the BIS service goes "to sleep" for 15 minutes after checking every few minutes for a while, I hope to keep the BIS server "on alert". If this works, then I should see absolutely NO late delivery.

(This test is going to drive me nuts.... 6 emails an hour for a day!) :-)

Keeping in mind that some of you are reporting within-a-few-seconds delivery all the time, I'm trying to build a case where I can take this to my carrier.

To my thinking, when my carrier delivers phone calls and SMS instantly, why do they (possibly) deprioritise email to the extent where 10-30 minute delays are experienced? This is not a *business strength* solution.

[iamlovingthebb]

i worked for tmobile and verizon and with both companies we have talked to RIM and it can take up to 15 minutes for emails to pull through but that is the max that it should take. it you have problems resend your service books to your phone.

[crnz]

This may be so. But why is it then, that -anecdotally- there are people who NEVER experience a delay, whereas I experience at least 1, often two delays a day on as few as 3-5 emails?

If it is because of the timing mechanism described by Sith, then I should be able to keep the BIS service 'alive' by pinging it with an email every 10 minutes. I'll be testing this. (Not that I would want to do that normally!!!!)

[mark-d]

This may be so. But why is it then, that -anecdotally- there are people who NEVER experience a delay, whereas I experience at least 1, often two delays a day on as few as 3-5 emails?

If it is because of the timing mechanism described by Sith, then I should be able to keep the BIS service 'alive' by pinging it with an email every 10 minutes. I'll be testing this. (Not that I would want to do that normally!!!!)

Wouldn't you need to send an email every three minutes as that's the check interval? From my understanding inital check is 15 minutes, then if an email is found subsequent check is 3 minutes and it continues at 3 minutes until a 3 minute check finds no emails, then it returns to 15.

By pinging it with an email every 10 minutes you'd still have a 5 minute delay as you'd only be invoking the 15 minute searches and the first subsequent 3 minute search would find nothing so return to 15.

It's just the way BIS works. Yes I'd love to have my emails come through instantly like they do on the computer but I accept that it doesn't as I use POP3, I think it's just a fact of BIS.

Other than going totally webmail or finding a host that supports IMAP Idle then you're going to have to learn to live with the 15 and 3 minute check intervals.

[crnz]

Maybe I'm just dense, but this is what I think is the problem.

If BIS already has the email, why would it wait 15 minutes to push it to me?

I have ***NO*** problem with BIS not popping a mailbox more than once every 15 minutes, and then once it does, pushing the results.

I DO have a problem where an email is handed directly to BIS through the blackberry.com address, and then it sits on it for up to 15 minutes.

The only answer is that BIS simply sits on an email it already has for me for up to 15 minutes. I may have to accept this, but not until I sense through agreement that is how it really works.

It seems stupid for BIS to hold on to an email it already has in its posession and not push it straight away.

And even if you're right - why are there people that claim all their BIS emails are pushed instantly?

I do not believe we fully understand the mechanism yet. Sith's document is valuable, but I do not believe it describes the situation I have been experiencing, so I'm still looking for an explanation.

[didiwags]

Sorry for your issue! I always get mail on my BB before my outlook and I have my outlook refresh every minute!

[mark-d]

If BIS already has the email, why would it wait 15 minutes to push it to me?

My understanding is that isn't what happens. BIS checks for the email every fifteen minutes and if it finds one it pushes it to you.


Some webmail accounts such as hotmail, live, yahoo, gmail have an always on connection with BIS so those emails are pushed instantly as they are received instantly by BIS. IMAP set ups that support IMAP Idle also benefit from a constant connection with BIS so these emails are pushed instantly.

Those mail accounts not falling into the category above go through the process I've described in brief above and Sith has described fully in his post. BIS checks for mail every fifteen minutes and if it has mail it pushes it to you. These mail accounts are not constantly connected with BIS so mail is checked for at 15 minute intervals and pushed, not harvested constantly and then pushed at 15 minute intervals.

[HarryMTorres]

I use gmail (google apps) with BIS...within seconds...I email all day.