Blackberry plan query

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quickymart

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#98558 1-Mar-2012 22:31

I'm toying with the idea of getting a Blackberry. I know you can't get them on Prepaid...but what is the cheapest plan available, including data? Can I have it as a XT Onebill plan, or does it need its own plan? The Telecom website gives a general idea but isn't 100% clear - it talks about things like data extras and things like that.

Thanks :)

plambrechtsen

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#589244 2-Mar-2012 10:33

You really need to get the Blackberry plan with your phone. Blackberry force you down the path of using BIS or Blackberry Internet Service and the blackberry APN. Telecom provisions your handset into the Blackberry BIS as part of having the plan. There is a cost that Blackberry give back to Telecom on a per handset basis which in turn is included as part of the Blackberry mobile plan. Hence why it's more expensive than a regular Smartphone plan.

You can work using the standard APN and not get BIS however that means you can't use any of the blackberry services such as Messenger & Browser and all the cool stuff that make Blackberry worthwhile and you have to use Opera. It's certainly not an easy road to go down and worth a bit of research via the internet before you plan to go down that path. It's not something I would be recommending to anyone as it's a far sub-par experience.

The best option is to either go for a Blackberry plan or to look at an alternate non-Blackberry handset on prepaid.

All the plan info can be found here: http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/plansandpricing/paymonthly

quickymart

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#589623 2-Mar-2012 22:38

Okay, so the cheapest Blackberry plan is $50 total? Is that right?

nzbnw

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#589646 2-Mar-2012 23:49

quickymart: Okay, so the cheapest Blackberry plan is $50 total? Is that right?

With included minutes etc then yes, however you can add a 100MB Blackberry Data plan to your Go One Bill plan for about $35, 400MB for $40, 1GB $70.

Blackberry Smartphone plans are better value however.

nzbnw

timbosan

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#589647 2-Mar-2012 23:56

plambrechtsen: You really need to get the Blackberry plan with your phone. Blackberry force you down the path of using BIS or Blackberry Internet Service and the blackberry APN. Telecom provisions your handset into the Blackberry BIS as part of having the plan. There is a cost that Blackberry give back to Telecom on a per handset basis which in turn is included as part of the Blackberry mobile plan. Hence why it's more expensive than a regular Smartphone plan.

You can work using the standard APN and not get BIS however that means you can't use any of the blackberry services such as Messenger & Browser and all the cool stuff that make Blackberry worthwhile and you have to use Opera. It's certainly not an easy road to go down and worth a bit of research via the internet before you plan to go down that path. It's not something I would be recommending to anyone as it's a far sub-par experience.

The best option is to either go for a Blackberry plan or to look at an alternate non-Blackberry handset on prepaid.

All the plan info can be found here: http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/plansandpricing/paymonthly

Actually that's not quite right. I used my Blackberry on Telecom prepay for several months and the only service I couldn't use was messenger & email (which is what goes through the RIM servers) and the App store (which did work fine via Wifi).

The native browser works great, some downloaded apps need a mucking around with since there is no BB APN, but all work (from memory!).

There are even email apps such as AstraSync that are written exactly for this need, i.e. Exchange based email with no need for BIS/BES or a BB plan.

There are lots of sites with help in this area, or just leave a message here if you have a query and I will do my best to answer it

quickymart

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#589836 3-Mar-2012 13:25

nzbnw:
quickymart: Okay, so the cheapest Blackberry plan is $50 total? Is that right?

With included minutes etc then yes, however you can add a 100MB Blackberry Data plan to your Go One Bill plan for about $35, 400MB for $40, 1GB $70.

Blackberry Smartphone plans are better value however.

nzbnw

I looked at the Smartphone plans you mention - but the cheapest one there is the $50 one, is that right?

nzbnw

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#592123 8-Mar-2012 08:35

Sorry, missed this.

The $50 option (Smartphone plan) includes SMS (300 SMS), Voice (50 minutes) and Data (500MB). If you wanted to keep your XT One Bill plan you can simply add a BIS/BES extra to the existing plan. Just confirmed these are;

$30.61; 100MB
$35.72; 400MB
$71.50; 1GB

You will then pay for your normal rata for Voice and or SMS over and above as you do today.

nzbnw

quickymart

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#592491 8-Mar-2012 18:27

Thanks for that. I was thinking of something that gave me x number of minutes, a few text messages and xMB of data for one price. That's what I thought the $50 smartphone plan was about.

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Handle9

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#592492 8-Mar-2012 18:30

quickymart: Thanks for that. I was thinking of something that gave me x number of minutes, a few text messages and xMB of data for one price. That's what I thought the $50 smartphone plan was about.

But not for Blackberry - gotta pay the BIS tax.

quickymart

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#592493 8-Mar-2012 18:36

Um, okay. Now I'm confused. What is it going to cost me, total, each month?

XT on the One bill - what would that cost?

Handle9

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#592500 8-Mar-2012 18:59

quickymart: Um, okay. Now I'm confused. What is it going to cost me, total, each month?

XT on the One bill - what would that cost?

Yeah sorry, thought you meant the normal smart phone plans. The $50 Blackberry smartphone plan is about the cheapest you'll get with minutes/texts/data on one bill. If you're meaning to combine it with other services I'm not sure.

Personally I wouldn't bother with a Blackberry for personal use. I've had one for a couple of years for work and have serious phone envy at my wife's Android. Just IMO.

plambrechtsen

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#592677 9-Mar-2012 10:18

quickymart: Um, okay. Now I'm confused. What is it going to cost me, total, each month?

XT on the One bill - what would that cost?

I forgot about OneBill and I hadn't thought that you could get OneBill and a BB plan, but if nzbnw says you can then in theory you can..

One Bill can be found here: http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/plansandpricing/otherplans

Basically it's a pay as you go account where you have no monthly bill and any usage such as phones / text / data you have goes onto your existing Landline & Broadband phone bill. If you can get a BB Data Extra ontop of that, then you would be up for just for the Blackberry Data Extra which would give you all the Blackberry Internet Services you would need.

http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/plansandpricing/paymonthly

And scroll down to the "Blackberry 100MB, 400MB and 1GB Data Extras" section. So then your monthly spend would just be the Blackberry Data Extra, and then Pay as you go depending on your usage.

I can't confirm 100% that you can get the OneBill + Blackberry Data Extra plan, but it would be worth calling up 123 or visiting a store and explaining that's what you're looking for.

Otherwise a regular Blackberry pay monthly plan is what you would need.

Or just go prepaid and live without the Blackberry features, which IMHO takes the Blackberry back to just a standard phone capable of Calling & Txt, but not much else without tutu'ing around. Which others have already said is a sub-par experience.

JY

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#595210 14-Mar-2012 17:23

I use to have the 400 MB BlackBerry BES data plan on my 'On the One Bill' home Telecom plan so I could have an XT BlackBerry (for coverage reasons) working to a corporate enterprise BES server supporting mainly Vodafone connected BlackBerries. In my experience the Telecom retail shops are not that familiar with the option; they needed to call the Telecom BB specialists for the right cap code to add the plan to my account.

However, there is not much point in having the BlackBerry BES service unless you have your own corporate style email and BB servers. While ‘berries support the optional BIS mode for email connection to third parties like Google and Yahoo, the main point of the BlackBerry system is for highly secure email and instant messaging in a corporate environment.