BIS -- Engadget Mobile

BlackBerry BIS drama today?

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 13th 2009 @ 5:41PM

We've been getting tipped left and right that BIS outages are affecting BlackBerry customers on many carriers today, meaning your hands have probably become progressively twitchier over the last couple hours as they've become further and further removed from up-to-date email access. Horrifying, isn't it? Our own Jacob tells us service has already been restored for him, so hopefully everyone out there in RIM land is in good shape; of course, if you're still having issues, drop a line in comments.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Viettel, Alcatel-Lucent and RIM bring BlackBerry solution to Vietnam

by Darren Murph posted Dec 19th 2008 @ 11:29AM

It's a good week internationally for BlackBerry lovers. First we hear that South Korea finally has unbridled access and its own Bold to toy with, and now we're hearing a similar story for the people of Vietnam. Viettel (a mobile operator in the country), Alcatel-Lucent and RIM have all joined hands to make it happen, with "it" being the launch of BlackBerry wireless service. Speaking of launch, prospective buyers can look forward to wrapping their palms around the Pearl 8100, BlackBerry 8700 or the Curve 8320 initially, though we wouldn't be surprised to see even more flavors roll out soon. There's no talk of price just yet, but feel free to phone up your nearest Viettel shop and see what's up.

[Image courtesy of thugian]

Indosat launches BlackBerry On Demand prepaid option

by Darren Murph posted Aug 14th 2008 @ 6:33PM

Indosat customers (or folks traveling through Indonesia) may be interested to know that the carrier has teamed with RIM to launch "BlackBerry On Demand," a prepaid option for fetching BlackBerry Internet Service in the country without a multi-year contract. Available in 7-day and 30-day packages, the on demand service is available to customers with prepaid and postpaid voice plans, though there's no word on pricing just yet.

NTT DoCoMo launching BlackBerry Internet Service

by Darren Murph posted Jul 7th 2008 @ 3:03PM

A full 25 months after we first heard that NTT DoCoMo was bringing BlackBerry to Japan, the carrier is just now getting around to announcing the launch of BlackBerry Internet Service. Of note, the provider still expects you folks over there to use that trusty (and rusty) 8707h to keep tabs with your corporate email, but at least you'll have bona fide BIS! Anywho, the service will run users ¥3,045 ($29) per month on top of the standard FOMA charges, and in case you're hungry for more, a BlackBerry Data Transmission Package will see the light in September and enable subscribers to "transmit up to 80,000 packets of data per month for a flat charge of ¥1,680 ($16). For those curious, extra data beyond that will run your bill up at the rate of ¥0.0525 ($.00049) per packet.

North American BIS customers get upgraded

by Michael Caputo posted Jun 4th 2007 @ 6:00PM

Over this past weekend, BlackBerry customers received a little treat if they're using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail accounts. RIM updated their BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) for what should be all service providers in North America from 2.1 to 2.3. With RIM's latest endeavor to reach a common ground for BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Service) functionality for the BIS subscriber, customers should now be rocking two-way wireless synchronization of deleted emails, auto forwarding from BIS email addresses, as well as read / unread message counts. From what we can tell, the upgrade went smooth with no issues -- which is exactly how BlackBerry users like it.