[modifier]

What I'm thinking is something awesome is happening with BlackBerry on or around September 10th, possibly far more than the WFC calling. That's what I'm deciphering...

It's too soon for the Slider announcement and she wouldn't have known about the iPhone 6s at that point to have it on the brain. It might just be that she was somehow confusing BIS with WFC...

...or we'll be blindsided with a magenta Passport to counter the 6s.

[CB10 / Q10]

[CivilDissident]

It's too soon for the Slider announcement and she wouldn't have known about the iPhone 6s at that point to have it on the brain. It might just be that she was somehow confusing BIS with WFC...

...or we'll be blindsided with a magenta Passport to counter the 6s.

[CB10 / Q10]

Chen did say he had something going with the Passport and T-Mobile, perhaps the Silver Passport sent to its' 1st US carrier officially along with the long awaited WiFi Calling?

The Slider announcement wasn't at all what I was thinking, definitely too premature for that... Although it would be exciting going forward to have T-Mobile release a new BlackBerry device first for a change. (I'm personally not at all interested in the Slider though, but would be stoked to see the carrier and BlackBerry display a little PDA in this manner. Would affirm the two have rekindled their relationship appropriately to me.)

Posted via CB10

[raino]

I doubt it's a(nother) Passport variant. Apparently they don't even have the resources to do a manufacturing run of white Classic -4s (not to mention the other colors they were supposed to do,) so another Passport would IMHO be a bad idea. Plus I doubt TMO would be bankrolling it.

WiFi calling though...bring it on.

[modifier]

Chen did say he had something going with the Passport and T-Mobile, perhaps the Silver Passport sent to its' 1st US carrier officially along with the long awaited WiFi Calling?

If it's anything, the PPSE would make the most sense.

I doubt it's a(nother) Passport variant.

I doubt we'll see variants of anything right now until we see if the Slider and/or Android gains any traction. The PPSE was a quiet means to mitigating issues resulting from bent PPs, since, after all, no one wants a bent PP--especially not a bent magenta PP.

(And, all jokes aside, I'm not suggesting magenta literally in color, just the carrier)

WiFi calling though...bring it on.

Absolutely.

[CivilDissident]

Hey, if WFC is all all that drops, I'd be just as ecstatic... Literally all I'd personally need to be happy at this present moment. I'm neither a Passport nor Slider fan and the Classic has brought me happiness, WFC would complete things full circle for me on a personal level...

Posted via CB10

[modifier]

Hey, if WFC is all all that drops, I'd be just as ecstatic... Literally all I'd personally need to be happy at this present moment. I'm neither a Passport nor Slider fan and the Classic has brought me happiness, WFC would complete things full circle for me on a personal level...

Same here. WFC will get me using the Classic more, although I'd still like to get 10.3.2 + WFC on my two Q10s as well.

[yhamaie]

For your information, across the Pacific Ocean, NTT DoCoMo (which used to distribute legacy OS devices throughout Japan) has announced that it will shut down BIS on 31 March 2017. (Applications for new BIS contracts will be accepted until 30 November 2015.)

Posted via CB10

[techguy1]

So someone who buys lets say an old 9900 Bold and has a prepaid $30 plan for T-Mobile. The actual BIS will still work or would they have to pay extra?

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[Thunderbuck]

Let's understand that BlackBerry's known for close to a decade that BIS wasn't sustainable forever. There's overhead. It costs them money, and it's a PITA for the carriers. It's getting to a point where there are fewer and fewer legacy handsets out there, and eventually, yes, BIS will go.

[Andrew-NYC]

I've spoken with T-Mobile Corporate Account support, and that person spoke to two other people and all have said this is not happening! BIS will still be alive & well after Sept. 12.

[lilituc]

I never assumed it applied to corporate accounts.

[BBRYed]

Tomorrow is the 10th. Let's hope something happens....wifi please so my z10 can be updated from its three year old operating system 10.2.1.

Poetry in Motion

[Jerry A]

Tomorrow is the 10th. Let's hope something happens....wifi please so my z10 can be updated from its three year old operating system 10.2.1.

Poetry in Motion

You should be okay. BB10 doesn't use the BIS infrastructure.

[BBRYed]

You should be okay. BB10 doesn't use the BIS infrastructure.

I was referring to CivilDissident's post that maybe something else was happening on the 10th -

Just read the other thread that says TMO isn't supporting Zs and Qs anymore. I like Raino's idea - have BlackBerry push the update to the Z and Q owners who are willing to part with WFC.

I'm starting to think that it's a BlackBerry problem vs TMO problem since the Classic doesn't have it either. Or are there any users with a Classic or any other phone for that matter minus Q and Z10 running WFC? Does every other phone TMO sell have WFC except the Classic?

Poetry in Motion

[Jerry A]

I was referring to CivilDissident's post that maybe something else was happening on the 10th -

Just read the other thread that says TMO isn't supporting Zs and Qs anymore. I like Raino's idea - have BlackBerry push the update to the Z and Q owners who are willing to part with WFC.

I'm starting to think that it's a BlackBerry problem vs TMO problem since the Classic doesn't have it either. Or are there any users with a Classic or any other phone for that matter minus Q and Z10 running WFC? Does every other phone TMO sell have WFC except the Classic?

Poetry in Motion

Sorry for the miss on my part.

It makes sense that they may stop supporting the Z10 & Q10 at this point. Both are over 2 years old. Don't know of any US carrier that actively supports phones that old - with one notable exception (and that line of phones is supported mostly by their manufacturer).

As for WFC, all newer T-Mobile branded phones support the feature (as long as they're running the T-Mobile supported version/release of their respective OS).

[mrlahjr]

So why is John Legere running an add asking for BlackBerry users to bring their phones over to tmo's network?

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

[mrlahjr]

It might force some to upgrade, and that seems positive for both BB and TMO, but not particularly the customer.

I'm just surprised that they didn't go to some middle ground before the big shutdown of BIS. Usually, these big carriers will resort to a customer upcharge for BIS if customers still desire it (along with a little profit for TMO), or simply stop new activations letting current BIS users keep going with notice of changes. Just seems strange that I can activate today (I'm assuming this is the case) and have it turned off next month effectively killing my device.

I'd think differently if BB was shutting BIS for everyone, but I don't think that's the case as a lot of the world market still uses it and will for some time.

Upgrade to what? The same OS I'm currently using? (10.2.1). Tmo won't even update the current BB10 devices to the latest OS version. John Legere doesn't know what his left hand's doing from his right.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

[mrlahjr]

I'm not on a corporate account and was assured the very same. BIS won't live forever, I have no convoluted assumptions thinking the service is immortal or anything, but as far as T-Mobile, BIS and the not-so-distant-future go, BIS will continue. The plug isn't quite ready to be pulled just yet...

Posted via CB10

BlackBerry shouldn't scrap this. They'll have a use for it when all else fails BlackBerry to the rescue.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

[Denise in Los Angeles]

So why is John Legere running an add asking for BlackBerry users to bring their phones over to tmo's network?

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

The hidden point of the ad campaign is that T-Mobile wants to eventually sell you a new phone. And I'm sure that they will try to lure you to buy a iPhone or Galaxy on their payment plan.

[raino]

I'm starting to think that it's a BlackBerry problem vs TMO problem since the Classic doesn't have it either. Or are there any users with a Classic or any other phone for that matter minus Q and Z10 running WFC? Does every other phone TMO sell have WFC except the Classic?

Well, the Classic has 10.3.2--that much is certain. It didn't launch with WFC, but it has pretty much been promised, so I'm sure it will get it. They had to push out 10.3.2 to meet the "kill switch law" deadline.

The Q10 and Z10 don't have 10.3.2--with or without WFC. The last official build for these two phones to have WFC is a 10.2.1.

BB may not have had WFC ready for 10.3.2 by the time they made up with TMO and/or pushed 10.3.2 to TMO Classics, but once the WFC-allowing 10.3.2 builds arrive for the Classic, I personally see no reason why they shouldn't for the Z10s and Q10s. But TMO apparently does.

Don't know of any US carrier that actively supports phones that old

AT&T and Verizon both pushed 10.3.2 to their Z10s, Q10s and Z30s (Verizon.) Almost two months ago.

[Jerry A]

AT&T and Verizon both pushed 10.3.2 to their Z10s, Q10s and Z30s (Verizon.) Almost two months ago.

The jaded part of me thinks that's because they were both selling those models at the beginning of 2015.

T-Mobile officially dropped the Z10 and Q10 from their lineup before the kill-switch cutoff date.

[raino]

The jaded part of me thinks that's because they were both selling those models at the beginning of 2015.

T-Mobile officially dropped the Z10 and Q10 from their lineup before the kill-switch cutoff date.

There was no legal requirement to update those phones, yet Verizon chose to, and AT&T chose to. The Classics on all three carriers needed to be updated, because they were being sold as of 7/1/15. The older phones were not.

But even if there is a "beginning of 2015" requirement, TMO hasn't updated their Galaxy S4 or S3 with their corresponding "kill switch" Android updates. The S3 may not have a manufacturing update available, but the S4 certainly does (Android 5.1,) and both were being sold by TMO post-7/1. The S3 is still being sold.

So either TMO doesn't give a **** about laws, or doesn't give a **** about customers, unless it can force planned obsolescence upon them and get them to upgrade (on their 24 month EIP, of course.) You pick.

Re: WFC (and voLTE too,) since BB10 integrates it into the OS, it's an OS-level feature, not device-specific. So TMO could choose to "test" it on the Classic and then white list that build internally for WFC across all three devices. But I don't think they're going to do that.

[BBRYed]

The jaded part of me thinks that's because they were both selling those models at the beginning of 2015.

T-Mobile officially dropped the Z10 and Q10 from their lineup before the kill-switch cutoff date.

But I bet there were/are still people paying on them. And there are enterprise customers using them. If bought in release month, two years would have been up in March 2015. To me it doesn't matter if they weren't selling them online or in stores anymore because of the John and John spat. Also, Clewley said everyone would get 10.3.2, including all carriers - he said carriers would just be a little longer. At the very least, TMO should have pushed 10.3.1 as the Z and Q weren't even two years old.


10.3.0 was released late 2014.
10.3.1 was released in February 2015
10.3.2 was released in June 2015.




Poetry in Motion

[BBRYed]

Thanks raino for clearing that up. I didn't know TMO branded Classics were running WFC now. I have a shopbb Classic without it which I'm ok with.

Poetry in Motion

[lilituc]

Thanks raino for clearing that up. I didn't know TMO branded Classics were running WFC now. I have a shopbb Classic wit
hout it which I'm ok with.

Whoa, who said that? Last I heard, WFC for the Classic was supposed to drop "after Labor Day." Possibly tomorrow. Also the T-mobile Classics are exactly the same as the generic ones from Amazon and ShopBB, unless someone knows different.