The sense of Wifi on a BB
 

If this is a productive convesation we will keep this thread stickied. What goes through your head as the end user. Here are some of the thoughts.

Great if you had open access to the web and could get speedier downloads and streaming video? But when? Not really open, so that means what you need a TM hotspot account - more cost?

Will it be needed next year with HSDPA BB's coming out where you could possibly stream music and videos?

Great if you could abandon your home phone to save money? But what about the other family members? Give everyone a BB, and a data plan. Doesn't make sense. Maybe makes sense for someone in college.

I think it will appeal to certain people... If you are a home body, and single, and make most calls from home...Other than that I can't really see the need for it. You might be able to shave your plan minutes and save money there, but the additional cost of tm@home will negate that savings...

I'd rather have GPS any day of the week....

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 8700g: BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I am in the group LunkHead mentioned. Even though I may not have that turned on all the time, I would like the option of it. I want the 8820 because then it will have WiFi AND GPS, of which I will probably use a lot more.

Wirelessly posted (8700g: BlackBerry8700/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I'm coming from having used wifi to check email and browse the web using a pda when in a hotel or other place with complimentery wifi. I'm not sure I'm lacking anything with the 8700g I would want that I had then, with the exception of the abilty to watch the occaisional video online, but it's not a big deal to me.

The downside I don't want to revisit is wifi hits the battery hard, and I understand it will be similar for blackberry.

I guess my overall, personal view is I've never felt limited by the EDGE bandwidth; my blackberry is a communication and information appliance, not an entertainment platform; and I don't see myself using wifi to reduce cell minutes. FWIW.

I have the 8820 in the UK. I use wifi to surf and download stuff (apps through OTA) all the time. The main advantage is that in the UK GPRS/EDGE data plans are limited. I am currently limited to 30MB a month with my data plan (any additional data is charged at £2 ($4) per MB). This plan is sufficient for email, and some daily browser use. However if I plan to really start downloading/uploading lots of data, I will use the wifi if it is available (and of course I don't a laptop/desktop nearby).

So far the wifi doesn't seem to overtax the battery. It start and stops itself automatically so you don't have to turn it on/off.

For me the thread that stated ATT wont allow wfif voice calls was very disappointing as that was the only reason i saw for me to get the 8820.

My reason is for hotel stays. I get to many hotels where I'm on the back side of the hotel and/or on a lower floor (hate that) and can't get a decent cell signal and have to go stand by the window to make a call or put the phone in the window and use BT. Also, when travelling overseas, it would be much cheaper to connect to a hotel's wifi than to roam. And my one last reason is when wifi comes to our corporate jets, I'll have BB at 41,000 feet!

Ummmmmmmm, Ain't you suppose to be flying the bird and not surfing the net Mr???

Shhhhh......someone will find out that it's no work at all at 41,000 feet for 4 hours across the country!

I'm interested in BB WiFi for use in my company's corporate offices and plant/showroom locations. We have wireless network set up in all of our locations, but not the best signal for the different carriers.

We have Bi-Directional Amplifiers some locations for iDEN and CDMA (Sprint) signals, but can't justify the cost of amplifying the other carrier signals (we don't have large enough accounts with the other carriers).

Some of our VP's and Sales employees have Verizon, T-Mobile, Rogers, etc, and when they are at some locations they do not have a good signal for their device.

Would be nice for the to have a WiFi device that would give them a good signal so they don't have to outside/near a window.

I haven't really given it much thought personally as EDGE and soon HSDPA will be available to me. WiFi certainly won't mind having the option to use it but i suspect there will be a charge to be able to use it.

much like john clark, i want wifi on bb for when i'm at hotels or motels (or home or inlaws') where i have good wifi coverage but non-existent and/or shaky/intermittent cingular/at&t network coverage. here is one (perhaps dumb) question: my home (and my inlaws' home) has encryption. i have the long generated passphrase saved in a .txt file on my laptop. if cingular/at&t stores ever get an 8820 i can buy to replace my 8800, will or should the 8820 permit me to save security profiles so secured wifi can find and connect automatically (like Intel PROSet Wireless software does on my company laptop?). thx

My main concern is will the BB automatically switch from WiFi to your carrier's data services automatically or will it provide notice for it.

My main concern is, for those who are travelling overseas for example, who are trying to avoid using data services within the overseas, may use the WiFi services of the hotel for example. There are other devices out there (HTC, HP iPAQ) which will automatically switch over to the carrier's data services without notifying the user they are switching over, this results in people thinking they are on the WiFi network but are actually roaming on the data network.

I wonder if they new BBs will have a prompt or warning or informational message to indicate it is switching from WiFi to the data network

--Phil

In the browser on the 8820 I have in the UK there seems to be two types of bookmarks. A bookmark can be saved either as a 'WiFi Browser' bookmark or an 'Orange World' bookmark (my provider's name for its data carrier service). If you select a 'WiFi Browser' bookmark it will only run under WiFi and pop up an error if you try to run it without WiFi access.

Also in the browser in the top right corner it displays the service it is using to communicate, ie. WiFi, GPRS, EDGE, etc.

However none of the GPS mapping products I have tried will use WiFi.

My coverage at home is very inconsistant-which in some ways is worse than knowing it will always be poor. I will know more if wifi makes sense after I've used an 8320 for a while, but I am curious to see if it makes a difference.

The hotel thing many brought up is a good example. I remember when I had to travel alot, my BB would have terrible reception if any at all in my room. It would've been nice to have the wifi feature during those times.

For us, in a corporate setting, WiFi is really only useful for voice coverage.

back story:

We're on AT&T. We used to use Verizon/Nextel for users predominately working in the U.S. and T-Mobile for who travel outside of the U.S. a lot. We consolidated onto AT&T since the data/voice roaming was similar to T-Mo, but AT&T/Cingular had better building penetration and general coverage/reception in the U.S than compared with T-Mo. International voice was less expensive than Verizon (for us). Nextel required a "loaner phone" which was too combersome. so it was Cingular/AT&T going forward (for the last 18 months).

data:
wifi for data isn't really useful. The people are just using the BBs for email. EDGE or GPRS is fine for that. We either get the $45/mo domestic plan or the $69/mo international data plan and just be done with it.

voice:
wifi for voice would be useful for two reasons. Not all managers have good AT&T coverage at home, but most do. Same with hotels. Wifi could help there. Others have mentioned roaming. It would be nice, when at a hotel overseas, or a customer/client site overseas, to have the option to use voice over WiFi, if the rates are less than GSM roaming rates.

battery life
Right now, I don't want to enable neither 3G (UMTS/HSDPA) nor WiFi if it will kill battery life. My users need battery life more than fast network speeds.

I think that one thing that is being overlooked when it is said that Edge or GPRS is fine for data is when I go to places like Korea or Japan and my GSM BB will not work. I am looking forward to being able to fire up my BB in hotspots in those countries and get my email or be able to chat using JiveTalk. Right now the BB is just a paperweight in those countries.

I think Wifi will exend my usage of the BB outside of the normal GSM networks.

Why WiFi?
1. Get broadband connectivity without paying the premium for a 3G service.
2. Reduce cell network congestion.
3. Emerging geeky goodness. Imagine device to device file transfer via WiFi.

Normally I'm flooded with open WiFi. Even in my home town, Mountain View has Google's free WiFi network all over.

Still would choose GPS over WiFi if the choice must be made.

When the 8300 comes out for T-mobile, I am hoping that HotSpots will be included with the Blackberry plan or at least allow us access to HotSpots with 8300.