The Switch: Episode 4

I have been using the BlackBerry Bold for two months now. It has been a battle uphill the learning curve. The basic laws of nature are different in the BlackBerry world. Of course I expected something unexpected entering this land. I expected BlackBerry handsets being fully controlled both by RIM and by the wireless service provider. But what I did not expect was how a service provider can without a reason cut the functionality by half. Or even more. But let me tell the story from the beginning.

BlackBerries have their own very special way of handling data connections. In case of the Bold 9000 there are four scenarios:

• The phone is connected via cellular data channel (GPRS or EDGE or 3/3.5G) to the service provider's generic APN. With this connection you can run some (but relatively few) applications (like the GMail rich client) and one incarnation of Web browser that goes directly to the Internet and renders pages entirely on the device.
• The phone is connected to your local Wi-Fi network. In this cace functionality is even more limited. There are just a few applications capable of working over pure Wi-Fi connection (the GMail client mentioned above does not work over Wi-Fi), the browser is one of them, but in this case it is the Hotspot Browser. Hotspot Browser is more or less the same browser as the one used over GPRS, but you cannot change connection on the fly. On my BlackBerry there are even two separate icons - one launches the GPRS browser and the other launches teh Hotspot browser. Weird... weird... especially after many years with the Windows Mobile platform.
• The phone is connected via cellular data channel (GPRS or EDGE or 3/3.5G) to the [blackberry.net] APN. To be able to do that you need to have BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) provisioned. With BIS you get push email (that used to be the main selling point of BlackBerry), but also when properly provisioned, the browser in the incarnation named [Internet Browser] uses this connection to get to the Internet with the help of RIM servers. Properly provisioned is the key word here, as with my BlackBerry this has not been the case. My service provider, which is T-Mobile Poland, did not provision the service the way it should.
  
• The phone is connected via Wi-Fi that is just a bearer for a VPN tunnel opened by the phone to the RIM servers. From the application standpoint this is almost the same as the previous [blackberry.net] mode, butworks over different radio - Wi-Fi insead of cellular.
  

After reading thousand or so messages on various Internet forums, I learned there were two service books missing on my Berry. Service books is a kind of registry controlled by service providers that specifies what functionality is available on the device and how and you cannot change it on your own. So the two missing in my case were:

• IPPP for BIBS [IPPP] (I assume this opens a pipe to RIM servers)
• BlackBerry Internet Browsing Service [Browser Config] (this one probably turns on the appropriate web browser functionality)

The symptoms of the missing service books were easy to detect.

First, there was no [Internet Browser] on my device. I mean I could browse the Internet with the hotspot browser (over Wi-Fi) or with the generic browser (over generic APN), but in the latter case the device was switching back and forth between the two APNs, and that in turn resulted in poor performance and high data bill, as the sessions with each APN were very short (several kB each) and T-Mobile rounds every session up to the nearest 100kB for billing purposes. I wrote about this in the Episode 3.

Second, many applications did not work at all reporting all sorts of connection problems. To avoid juggling the APNs and to optimize the bill for data services, a lot of applications want to use the [blackberry.net] tunnel to get to the Internet via RIM servers. BlackBerry terminals try to keep the [blackberry.net] APN attached all the time and it is usually good practice to write other applications to piggy back on this very connection. Some applications, like the TwitterBerry Twitter client, let you select (or auto-select) the connection type. But many, like E*Trade Mobile Pro (an excellent stocks / financial application), just do not work at all when BIBS is not provisioned. On top of that many applications stop working when you are out of the network coverage, but within a Wi-Fi range (which is the case where I live). To run the Facebook application, I have to lean out of the window to reach for GPRS signal. With BIBS properly provisioned, Facebook would tunnel via my Wi-Fi and RIM servers to the Net. The same applies to numerous other apps.

When I realized what was going on, I called T-Mobile customer support asking to send me the missing service books. They said they did. Nothing appeared on my side. I asked again. They said they did resend me the service books. And we looped this several times. I was wondering what was going on... Started digging over the BlackBerry Knowledge Base. Found several articles describing my very problem. Sent them the links. Just to get the final reply "we do not provision the service books you are asking for". So I opened an unofficial channel via a good friend of mine and he came back with "Sorry... This is the way it works at T-Mobile... You will not get your BIBS...". What to do? I threw the same question over to the other mobile service providers in Poland - Vodafone and Orange. They both confirmed they do provision BIBS. And I checked their prices... 60% less than T-Mobile... Guess what will happen now? Of course I will terminate my contract with T-Mobile. My BlackBerry is unfortunately SIM-locked, so it will be auctioned on eBay and I will be buying a new one (as I really love the way it works) from a different service provider.

Yeah, I know.... I should have asked before the purchase... "Excuse me, Mr. T-Mobile, I really like this Bold 9000 smartphone, but before I commit to sign a contract... do you provision the IPPP for BIBS service book?"... Somebody somewhere at T-Mobile decided not to provide the RIM BIBS service to the customers. For whatever reason... This move just cut half of the functionality or more... some users may be will not realize... but I am furious... really furious... Look fo the next episodes of The Switch. I have switched to the new mobile platform. I really like it. But to realize its full potential I have to switch the service provider too. Hope the series won't be too long...