Roaming to Aussie vs Buying a Local SIM

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ferg_nz

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#97108 10-Feb-2012 18:51

Hi All

My wife and I are going to Melbourne in March and i am trying to work out the best option for between Roaming vs Buying local SIM's once i get there

We both run Blackberry's on XT mine is a company one (on a BES i manage) and her's is on the BB Smartphone 50 plan

I know that the data/txt plan allowances will not be used while roaming. We both use BBM instead of text and would prefer to keep using that while away. I am planning on turning off email redirection to my BB while away as i dont want work to be bugging me but still want to use data for BBM, Google Searches and mapping etc so just turning off the data while roaming is not an option.

Does anyone know if any of the mobile networks in Aussie support BIS on the cheap prepaid plans and if so what ones and heres hoping that the BB 9700 and 9000 will work on that network if the do have BIS.

Of course Blackberries will not use standard Data plans so hence the need for one with BIS to acces all the things above that i mentioned.

any suggestions welcome

hamish225

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#579949 10-Feb-2012 20:25

I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

johnr

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#579950 10-Feb-2012 20:35

hamish225: I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

Google research this will answer your question

John

plambrechtsen

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#580085 11-Feb-2012 09:33

johnr:
hamish225: I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

Google research this will answer your question

John

+1 John. There is plenty of research elsewhere online talking about BIS service will not work with anything other than the provider SIM due to the way that the whole Blackberry architecture works and that BIS service needs to be enabled by the provider to RIM via the Blackberry APN for it to all work.

I think the best you will get is Voice calls and SMS plus Browsing using Opera on the Blackberry to allow browser access, but none of the Blackberry data services will be available.

Batman

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#580090 11-Feb-2012 10:01

get either an optus turbo plus prepay sim or an amaysim sim. amaysim might be more difficult to get but there is an optus store in the airport.

search optus.com.au to understand the value of turbo plus - plenty of data and plenty of calls/texts to anywhere in the world for bugger all

old3eyes

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#580092 11-Feb-2012 10:07

hamish225: I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

The question needs to be asked what Blackberry plans cost more that a normal smart fone plan..??

Regards,

Old3eyes

boby55

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#580098 11-Feb-2012 10:16

old3eyes:
hamish225: I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

The question needs to be asked what Blackberry plans cost more that a normal smart fone plan..??

BIS Licensing I would imagine?

networkn

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#580100 11-Feb-2012 10:18

Amaysim are great, not sure how it would affect your BB Services.

I have used Amaysim twice in Aussie now, cheap and cheerful and simcards available and most diarys and petrol stations etc..

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blakamin

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#580104 11-Feb-2012 10:26

I just arrived in melbs and went straight to a telstra shop... there is some stuffing around getting a pre-paid sim due to "anti-terrorism" laws, but it is brilliant!
Have a look at telstra.com.au

alasta

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#580135 11-Feb-2012 11:50

When I was working in Melbourne on and off during 2010 I got a prepaid SIM from 3 and the data was very cheap, whereas roaming data on my NZ provider was prohibitively expensive.

This was a good solution for my iPad but unfortunately I didn't consider it feasible for my iPhone because using a foreign SIM would mean that I would be unable to receive any calls on my native NZ based phone number. From that point of view it was advantageous to have the two separate devices.

ferg_nz

175 posts

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#580143 11-Feb-2012 12:26

Cheers all.

After some looking round Optus seem to have a $30 Blackberry Prepaid plan that might suit. now to confirm the devices we have will work on the optus network. any one know of a checker like telecom have for the XT network http://www.telecom.co.nz/phonecompatibilitychecker that i could use to confirm

Cheers again

blakamin

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#580150 11-Feb-2012 12:46

The xt compatibility was why I went with telstra...

BarTender

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#580170 11-Feb-2012 13:45

Is this of any use?? http://au.blackberry.com/purchase/special_offers/consumer.jsp

Just need to check your handset to make sure it is a quad band phone. But if you are in the larger cities you should have 2100Mhz data coverage so data should be ok.

Batman

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#580194 11-Feb-2012 16:10

telstra is the ultimate.

whatever you do, don't get a vodafone or any other ones that go on voda eg 3 ... your 3g speeds will be pathetic outdoor and non existent indoors

old3eyes

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#580232 11-Feb-2012 18:48

boby55:
old3eyes:
hamish225: I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

The question needs to be asked what Blackberry plans cost more that a normal smart fone plan..??

BIS Licensing I would imagine?

Data is data regardless of what you attached to it..

Regards,

Old3eyes

BarTender

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#580234 11-Feb-2012 19:13

old3eyes:
boby55:
old3eyes:
hamish225: I don't understand, why cant a blackberry have a 'standard' data plan?

The question needs to be asked what Blackberry plans cost more that a normal smart fone plan..??

BIS Licensing I would imagine?

Data is data regardless of what you attached to it..

BIS is a managed infrastructure service provided by RIM via the telco to the customer. It has an associated per-customer cost from RIM passes onto the telco, who in turn passes it onto the customer. Telco's use the blackberry APN on the phone to firewall the blackberry to the BIS server. However your blackberry won't be able to authenticate to BIS unless the Telco has provisioned service into BIS for that phone on it's network.

If you've ever owned a Blackberry you would know that the device data wise is tightly locked down to force you to use the BIS service to get any of the Blackberry managed services such as Mail or Messenger.

Then if you're an enterprise RIM clip the ticket once again to provide a BES server inside your organisation to allow you to push e-mails to your blackberry phone when they arrive.

Much like Apple with their iPods/iPhones/iPads and iTunes living within the Blackberry/BIS/BES walled garden RIM has created forces you means you can only work the way that you are told to work.