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From HowardForums: Bell is launching two new personal data plans similar to Telus’ Email and Web 30.

• Unlimited Personal Email & Internet BlackBerry 30
• Unlimited Personal Email & Internet Windows Mobile 30

On the BlackBerry, this package offers unlimited data since all traffic flows through the BIS browsing transport - the only thing restricted is tethering the device to a computer for Internet access, which is charged at $15/MB. US roaming is $8/MB, both figures which seem to fall in with the ridiculous state of Canadian wireless data charges.

While I personally don’t use Bell for wireless - and would definitely go with Telus over Bell if choosing between CDMA carriers - the company has a large number of BlackBerry devices provisioned. It’s a competitive move before the Rogers iPhone and BlackBerry Bold launch, and if you don’t need BES access, this might be a worthwhile plan to investigate.

From BerryReview.com:

RIM and Microsoft have tied together to bring tighter integration between Hotmail/Messenger and the BlackBerry. Just look at the promised features in the press release.

This is an awesome announcement - up until now, Bell in Canada and T-Mobile in the States have been the only carriers to offer MSN Messenger to their subscribers. Part of my work at RIM involved instant messaging provisioning and testing the Windows Live Messenger component in preproduction, so it’s awesome to hear that the service will be coming out on a wider scale. I expect it’ll be similar to Facebook’s deployment and this is a huge marketing chip for carriers like Rogers and Telus.

(I know a lot of people on Telus from HowardForums have tried to get the MSN Messenger client working, and you can’t do it without getting a Connection Error 65 - RIM has to enable your SIM or device for it. It’s not just a service book issue.)

Congrats to the teams at RIM and Microsoft on getting a deal worked out - MSN/Windows Live Messenger is definitely one of the most popular services here in Canada.

Additionally, this announcement will take Hotmail/Windows Live Mail from a second-class citizen (you had to pay for Hotmail Plus to access it on your device, ordinarily) to a top-tier mail account with push access. In effect, when using BIS, you’ll get the message on your device as soon as it lands in your inbox, and not from 2-15 minutes afterwards. Other providers with push email on the BlackBerry are Yahoo Mail and Gmail, and some GoDaddy hosted accounts.

I’ll post an update here once the release happens and I’ve had a chance to test the consumer software. With the release of the 9000Bold and this news, things are looking good for the future with BlackBerry devices.

So were any of you looking forward to the Rogers BlackBerry and PDA data plan changes? A recent update to that thread noted that the changed rates have been delayed indefinitely. For now, the best choice for data usage is the Telus PDA offer, which is now $30 per month for unlimited data (but not text messaging.)

The upcoming Q2 2008 service changes should make bundling voicemail and caller ID slightly more worthwhile - for $11 per month, you get:

Caller ID
Enhanced Voicemail
Name Display
Who Called
Mobile Backup
125 Text Messages

Considering caller ID and name display are about $9 per month by themselves, this will probably be the extra “standard package” to consider for light text messaging users. There are a few other Communicate Packs listed in the thread. Expect these packages to go live around May 6th.

Oh, and you can now get 1GB of BlackBerry data for $100 per month. Awesome!

…NOT.

Part of a comment I posted at BlackBerry Cool:

With respect to WiFi, RIM’s strategy seems to be that they offer it to carriers committed to UMA. This is likely because carriers still derive revenue from UMA clients, which makes up for the offset data costs over WiFi. At present I can’t think of a CDMA carrier with UMA planned - Sprint seems to be intent on selling base stations with native 800/1900 coverage - so I wouldn’t expect to see a WiFi device on a CDMA network any time this year.

For those of you who got in on the Telus $15 IM/Personal Email plan back in December through to January, it was a wise move. Telus recently released a new set of data plans which distinguish between purely email and Web usage.

Essentially, Web browsing on a Windows Mobile or BlackBerry device now costs an extra $15 per month; or for the same $30, you can have email, BlackBerry Messenger, unlimited text messaging, caller ID and voicemail (without the Web.) Bumping up to a $45 data plan gives all the fruit (Web/IM/text/CID/VM/email), which is actually a very reasonable deal in the spectrum of Canadian wireless pricing.

The related HowardForums thread indicates that existing clients on the pre-February $15 Unlimited IM/Personal Email rate plan will be able to keep the “unlimited on-device browsing” bonus for the duration of their contract. Changing rate plans (for example, going to the $30 email/text/CID+VM package) at this point will remove the bonus, as noted in the conditions post.

What’s interesting is that the Telus plans are specifically set up to charge $8/MB for data usage over and above standard email/Web access; this would indicate that clients on BlackBerry devices are being set up as fully functional subscribers with the BIS-B (BlackBerry Internet Service - Browsing) service enabled, and that Telus is doing the necessary work to distinguish different types of traffic.

I’ll keep a close eye on my personal bill to see if there are any extra charges for services - like many other new subscribers in December and January, I was told that “unlimited data, provided it’s not abuse or tethering” was fully included for the duration of my rate plan.

While I don’t think 2008 will be the year of truly unlimited BlackBerry data plans (including BES access or tethering), things are definitely looking up for consumers.

I’m definitely a cell phone/wireless “enthusiast”, which is only really a nice way to say “consumer whore.” In the past few years, I’ve personally had wireless service from Virgin Mobile Canada, Rogers (both Pay As You Go and on contract) and now Telus - and provided support for users on nearly other provider you can think of. One of the websites that feeds this addiction is HowardForums, which I link to every third post on average.

There are a good number of users on HoFo that are just there to piss and moan about their existing provider, which makes very little sense because I’ve yet to see an honest offer of help from a customer service representative to someone who’s trashing the carrier. Indeed, why WOULD you want to help these individuals?

Recently, though, the most popular topic has been wireless data rates and how to get the best possible plan for them. Of the three primary carriers in Canada, Bell offers a $7 “unlimited data” plan on the HTC Touch and both Telus and Rogers offer a $15 “unlimited email/instant messaging” plan on their BlackBerry Pearl models (8130 versus 8100r). The difference is that Telus’ plan can also apply to their HTC Touch and HTC S720, and includes “unlimited web browsing” as well. All carriers require a minimum $30/month voice contract in addition to the $15 email plan.

In effect, unlimited Web browsing on a BlackBerry device, since all Internet data goes through the BlackBerry Internet Service browser gateway, is “unlimited BlackBerry data.” Telus is unique in this regard because they not only assign the BlackBerry Prosumer (BIS) email service, but they also allow Web browsing, through the BIS-B service.

So, if you don’t mind the SureType interface of the Pearl (and some people consider this a deal-breaker), the best option going right now for BlackBerry plans in Canada is the $0 Pearl 8130 with Telus - you’ll get the full experience of the platform for $45 per month, plus service fees. The device is pretty neat since it also offers GPS and EvDO (wireless high speed data) support in a reasonably sized candybar form factor.

Full disclosure: While I work for Research in Motion, this post represents my personal opinions and not those of my employer. I deal with people using nearly every carrier you can think of every day: that’s one of the advantages of having a BlackBerry device in that you’re not limited to a specific carrier to get the same experience.

I think I’ve found a group of people just as annoying as elitist Mac users. This group would be the no-holds-barred Firefox/Mozilla zealots who hang out at Spread Firefox and post Diggbait articles about the state of browser compatibility. Yes, Firefox has done great things for Web standards and interoperability of sites; it’s also nice to have the same browsing UI on Windows, OS X and Linux boxes. Yes, not everyone at Spread Firefox is drooling with glee as they report sites for misplacing a LI tag. Unfortunately, today’s target of my wrath does not meet the criteria for exemption.

It’s specifically this list that irks me today, written by a guy whose interests apparently include bashing “Micro$oft”, South Park boot screens, and writing about browser incompatibilities.

The only reason I even bring this up (and since I refuse to go into the Digg comments; they’re already at over 110 and I don’t think I’ve seen one intelligent one yet) is because Nathan links to blackberry.com as one of the sites that’s incompatible with Firefox.

Wait, hold up. blackberry.com (the consumer/promotion site for the devices) is about one of the most likely sites to comply with Web standards, since it’s also designed to be viewable on a BlackBerry device. What’s this guy on about? His complaint is specifically the Google Talk instant messenger download page:

http://www.blackberry.com/GoogleTalk/index.do Uses obsolete ActiveX junk. And Google is somehow involved with this?!?

For reference, here’s what the website says when I go to it using Firefox:

Notice

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above is required to download this Instant Messenger.

This web page uses ActiveX controls that work only in Microsoft Internet Explorer. To ensure that Google Talk for BlackBerry devices is correctly downloaded to your BlackBerry, this site is not designed to work with any other Internet browsers.

This page is a separate application with an ActiveX control, designed to connect to your device using USB and load a Java MIDlet (which can’t be done with conventional web scripting language, so ActiveX is really the only way to go.) Furthermore, anybody accessing this page can also do it from their BlackBerry device, which also properly loads the application without the IE requirement.

For the record, I use both IE7 and Firefox at work, each for about 50% of typical usage. All my custom development works equally well in both browsers, except for SharePoint/Project Server integrated plugins (and that’s a Microsoft limitation.) Yes, it’s not entirely great that you can’t load MIDlets with Firefox, but the reality of the business world is such that you can count on a Windows/IE combination for corporate desktops; a Firefox extension/plugin for the same functionality doesn’t really make sense when there’s already a browser-agnostic way of performing this task.

A puzzling problem lately arose when I was asked (through our consulting business) to find a better contacts, calendar and task synchronization solution for a BlackBerry device and Microsoft Outlook. Typically, large business and enterprise users have little issue with this problem, since BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Exchange, GroupWise or Domino takes care of the process. That’s not the case for individual, BlackBerry Internet Service users, who have to connect their device through USB and have the Desktop Manager software perform the synchronization.

This process is less than ideal for small business users, cost of which is only one factor. (You can get a free copy of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express for one user, which is expandable for up to fifteen users with additional client access licenses.) Unfortunately, it’s not just the software itself that users balk at paying for - you have to be running Exchange Server, Novell GroupWise or Lotus Domino as your backend email server, which can be a much more expensive proposition than BES itself. In my client’s case, they’re running a package called AltN MDaemon for Windows, which provides OWA-like functionality through a component called WorldClient. BES was not an option in this case.

Fortunately, MDaemon (through WorldClient) does support a standardized component called SyncML. Using this guide, I was able to provide the following solution:

• The user account on the MDaemon server (userid@example.com) is accessed using the Outlook Connector component. This keeps all mail stored on the mail server, but also has the side effect of storing contacts, calendars and notes in IMAP-like format on the server as well.
• Mail coming to the MDaemon server for userid@example.com is also forwarded (using mail rules/filters) to the BIS account - in this case, userid@example.blackberry.net.
• The WorldClient and SyncML services are activated on the MDaemon server - for example, at http://mail.example.com:34567/.
• Using a component called SyncJE installed on the BlackBerry device, contacts, calendars, and tasks are synchronized with the server copies. This synchronization can be done manually, to keep data usage in check - or automatically. SyncJE is a fifteen-day trial with a nag screen, and is $39.95 to purchase.
• The following settings are used for SyncJE on the BlackBerry:
  

  URL: http://mail.example.com:34567/MDSyncML.dll (where mail.example.com:34567 is your WorldClient URL)
  Username: (the username for the MDaemon account)
  Password: (the password for the MDaemon account)
  Contacts Folder Name: contacts
  Calendar Folder Name: calendar
  Todo Folder Name: tasks

  The Zen Software site notes that “If you want to synchronise a Public Contacts, Calendar or Tasks folder instead then use the following format in the FolderName field instead:

  ./Public Folder/company.mail/Contacts”

While I can’t officially recommend this solution as the best option, it works well for my client’s needs, and may assist you with your own personal scheduling systems. For example, SyncML components may be available for your mail server, which would also work with SyncJE.