AT&T Blackberry Plan

[BradQue]

I have inherited my daughter's old Blackberry Bold 9000 and want to activate it so I can play around with it's features. I don't want a contract and (hopefully) would like to keep the monthly cost below $60 and only need a small amount of minutes, data/email, and texting.

Does anyone know if AT&T has a plan that fits what I am looking to do?

Thanks,

Brad

[efparri]

BlackBerry phone have to use the BlackBerry Internet Service, which is the lower priced Blackberry data plan. There are two prices depending upon how much data you want. Only the unlimited messaging plan is available. You can get the lowest priced voice plan available.. There is no real inexpensive option for using a BlackBerry phone on any of the major carriers.
Lowest price individual voice plan - $39.99
DataPlus data plan for BlackBerry - $20.00 (300 megabytes)
Unlimited messaging plan $20.00
Individual Cell Phone Plans & Individual Phone Plans from AT&T
Messaging, Unlimited Data, Wireless & Mobile Services from AT&T
That's about $80 unless you are a senior (65+) and get the $29.99 voice plan.

[BradQue]

Thanks Earl. You're right. I just had an old one I wanted to try but not bad enough to pay 80 bucks or so to do it.

[music4praise]

If you don't mind doing a bit of file reloading, you can get your Blackberry to "mostly" work on a prepaid provider that runs on the AT&T network. The SIM only plan from Straight Talk ($45/month) would do the job. Just make sure you get the AT&T SIM. They also sell a T-Mobile one. Directions for getting and loading the service books can be found here:

How to use data on a BlackBerry without BIS

I have done this on several Blackberries with good success. It looks harder than it actually is. Using the Blackberry software which is freely available, be sure to backup the phone first so you put things back the way they were.

You won't get push email or BBM but many other apps will work just fine.