[988dobbinss]

Hey all i have had my BB Bold for near a year now and still im not 100% sure of one thing.

Many people have BB's yet do not have the BB service. My question is, does the BB service run through your carriers network coverage or does the Blackberry service use its own signal??

I want to know, if i have no signal to make/recieve calls from my carrier, will my blackberry still pick up e-mails/use internet, using the blackberry service i have subscribed to??

regards
Simon Dobbins

PS im in the UK, if that makes any difference.

[monkeypaw]

The phone connects to your service provider's network. BB data does go through RIM, but it goes via your service provider's network. No cell signal means no service of any kind.

[988dobbinss]

This is a little bummer then, so im basicaly paying extra for a service that i would be getting free with my carrier anyways (o2) im on contract for £30 permonth at the min (including bb dataplan) however o2 offer pay and go sims for £10 per month, with free internet and texts! and o2 do not require you to have the data plan when buying blackberry!

[MidnightDraven]

Understand, without the Blackberry Unlimited UK Bolt-on, your BB cannot setup emails, cannot use BB messenger, google maps, facebook, myspace and many other apps. And really depending if it sets up; you wont be able to go on the internet without it.

They have Blackberry Bolt-ons for a reason....because you need it to make the blackberry work.

[woodyuk]

You can use your Blackberry browser including the ability to download and have your email sent to your phone using third party push email apps just by installing a "browser via tcp" service book and inputting the relevant tcp settings for your network.My work as a journalist regularly takes me to parts of the developing world where there is no BIS and no network that I can roam on so I use local sim cards in my Bold and use the Shangmail push email app to push a couple of different email accounts.

Using this method you could use an O2 PAYG sim on their £10 tarrif but you would not be able to use some functions that will only work via BIS such as Blackberry Messenger,but your browser would still work and there are a selection of third party push email apps available.I discovered this method a year or so ago and it has always worked very well for me when I have been working in the proverbial back end of beyond.

So the bottom line is that to use your Blackberry browser and have push email,albeit using a third party application you do not need a Blackberry data plan but to use all of the features of your Blackberry you do need a data plan.When I get home to the UK I just pop my Virgin sim back into my 9000,resend my service books if needs be and switch back to BIS again.

I first discovered this method by reading the information here