Verizon Blackberry vs. T-Mobile Blackberry?

[Vermontskier]

Thoughts on this?

Blackberry 6750:
VZW: Great coverage
$499. No discount. 10 megs of memory. 3 hour talk time
$49.99 per month for unlimited data.

Blackberry 6710: (16 megs memory, 3 hr talk time)
T-Mobile: Avg-flaky coverage
$399 w/ $100 rebate = $299
$40 per month for unlimited data.

I want to go with VZW, but its so much more expensive! Hard time convincing the bean-counters at my company that the extra coverage is worth the extra cost.

Any thoughts on the +/- of the two blackberry services?

[njsvrzncdma]

what that comes down to is the coverage. You are going to pay for it. Verizon knows that they have the coverage and make you pay for it. Tmobile dosent have the coverage which is why they have lower prices. because they dont have nething else.

[Dharmster]

If you can live without the latest and greatest technology how about the Blackberry 6210 from AT&T Wireless?

According to their website it's $399 and it's $39.99 for a 4MB plan or $49.99 for unlimited. I know their coverage is limited (although expanding rapidly as AT&T completes its overlay of TDMA) but I've got to believe ATTWS would provide better customer support than T-Mobile.

[Rasputin]

T-Mobs coverage is better than ATT and the GSM overlay is taking forever..Verizon you get what you pay for.

[njsvrzncdma]

as of right now tmobiles is better however AT&T is updating at a very rapid rate ...

[Mike]

At work we started with the AT&T 6210's and added a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) Notes Server so we could get our Lotus Notes email. Then we added some T-Mobile 6210's. Since we are using the BES Server it connects via the Internet to the RIM Master BES Server so it does not matter which provider the Blackberry is on as the RIM Master BES knows which Blackberry is connected to which network and sends the email to either AT&T or T-Mobile depending upon the PIN of the unit. That provider then tracks down the Blackberry.

We have found that there is good coverage as sometimes the AT&T is connected to the Cingular Wireless Network, other times to the T-Mobile Network, and then the T-Mobile units have received when connected to AT&T or Cingular Wireless. As long as there is a roaming agreement and GPRS we get the emails. We have had employees in Norway using it just like they were here in town.

Our traveling employees now leave the laptop at home and use only the Blackberry as email is usually all they use the laptop for when travel.

I believe the 6210 is the newest, and as soon as the 7230 comes out we will start adding them. Not because of the color screen but because it is a tri-band and we have found a few places the dual band is not yet working, for example Brussell. A few places in Europe you will need the tri-band.

[Matt]

Someone on howardforums said the 7230 was on the TM website for a few days over the weekend but was pulled. IIRC it is listed in the help section so TM should be putting back online soon.

[njsvrzncdma]

7230 ? this is why i dont like working for an authorized agent , im the store manager and noone tells me squat (Tmobile i mean) i heard about the color sidekick i hear about the 6100, 3595, 6800, ect but havent heard of this one.....oh and the SE t610 i think it was.

[Matt]

here is a link that talkes about the 7230 but it is still off the TM site.

Did you hear about the Nokia 6610? That has been out for about 2 weeks....

[GoodmanR]

njs, do you have the 610 in your store? what do you think of it

[Vermontskier]

Thank you for your comments.

I'm not sold on ATT. I had an ATT TDMA phone and customer service was terrible in trying to explain away the fact that their service was non-existent and they were replacing their networks. If my knowledge of technology is worth anything, the first rule is: if they say "within the year," they mean everything will actually be working reliably within two years. Roaming agreements, multiple technologies, multiple carriers, just asking for trouble and exorbitant roaming fees! Give me one carrier, one bill and make it predictable! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I'm still torn, though. My company has offices in Boston & NYC. We will never need Intl coverage so the benefits of dual or tri-band GSM are wasted on us Yanks.

Assuming I accept that the price premium is worth it to get on Verizon, what have people's experiences been with the setup? A t-Mobile rep told me that VZW "doesn't have an enterprise server, with T-Mobile its provided".

I thought I had to buy a Blackberry server anyway!? Any benefits to joining T-Mobile for this reason?

Thanks!!

[Mike]

Actually the carriers do not have the Enterprise Servers, Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry has the Enterprise Server that then sends the email on to the correct carrier. If you are using Exchange or Notes, then your company will need a Enterprise Server (Exchange or Notes) and Internet connection to connect to the RIM Enterprise Server.

We have a Lotus Notes Enterprise Server and some are using T-Mobile and others are using AT&T but when we set up the Blackberry we do not need to tell the Enterprise Server which provider to use as each Blackberry PIN code does that. I would assume for Verizon the same is true, but we are using only the GSM version.