This is why Blackberry is having a hard time...

I've been out of the personal phone procurement for awhile. I have an original Blackberry Bold from 3 years back that I want to get set-up so I purchased an unlimited data plan. It cost me 198 here in HK w/ a number of minutes as well.

However, once the data plan is active nothing works. I come to find out that Blackberry still requires a 'special' data plan. Looking at the prices, for the same unlimited data, it will cost me double!

Without the stiff competition Blackberry is facing on the hardware/software side, how can they compete when it costs double on the service side. That's not in addition to the extra $10 US I pay for BES.

Am I missing something? Anyone know how I can get my Blackberry's data service to work using the standard data package from SmarTone-Vodafone in HK?

That's the deal with Blackberry's. If you want BIS you have to pay extra - because the telco is being charged by RIM.

In Australia now, most carriers have "Blackberry" plans that include unlimited data. They are normally about $10AUD a month more expensive or have about a third of the data allowed for say iPhone or Android devices.

But since I have my own BES, shouldn't I be able to bypass that? I don't need their BIS server for email. I have that w/ my own BES.

Doesn't BES only relate to emails though? No extra data? Sorry, I'm not sure about BES as I've only ever used BIS through a carrier.

I don't know about there, but in the US, the BES service traditionally runs quite a bit more. Don't know if its a setup issue or just that its business-oriented...

Last I paid for BES data access through AT&T it was $15 USD a month plus the regular data. Not a huge deal.

Now with BESX I can and have dropped the BES extra data plan and am good to go. I am saving $15 USD per month now.

Usually the BES portion is a small part of the plan, but the data portion should be a BlackBerry data plan. Your carrier should be able to switch to the other plan without problem.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by SimoneDice

But since I have my own BES, shouldn't I be able to bypass that? I don't need their BIS server for email. I have that w/ my own BES.

Just to be clear, you have a single BlackBerry for your own personal use and you purchased a BES?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

It's fascinating how Canada and the US differ in regards to data pricing, both wired and wireless. Most carriers in Canada charge the same for BlackBerry data plans as they do for android/iphone data plans. I always assumed that despite the fact the carriers pay RIM for BIS, BlackBerry's superior data compression would provide the carrier with significant data savings.

Of course, unlimited data plans are pretty unusual up here, at least among the major carriers.

Originally Posted by squished18

Just to be clear, you have a single BlackBerry for your own personal use and you purchased a BES?

I have a hosted Exchange plan w/ Shareweb and a service I can add-on for $10USD /month is Blackberry data synch/BES. It provides full push services for email, calendar, contacts, etc. Love the service - but find it annoying that I have to pay for BIS w/ my service provider when I won't use it and have to pay more.

It looks like this is just the way it is and there is no technical workaround. I'll just have to eat the extra cost or move to another platform. :(

Yeah, BES is one of the most expensive services out there. As you have noted that extra cost isn't all for nothing, as there is a host of functionality that is not available anywhere else.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Yeah the best way to go is unlimited data, everything takes "data" on a blackberry including apps etc, and push, so obvi.

USA Carriers like T-Mobile don't charge you extra for a BB data plan. It's the same price as any other smartphone. However if you want BES you either have to install and manage it on your own server OR pay your Exchange Host a monthly fee for it, and it's typically $9-19.99 per month - not an insignificant cost.

People have been saying this for years now. Blackberries need Native ActiveSync support on the consumer end - ASAP.

I don't know much about ActiveSync - are data transmissions encrypted through ActiveSync?