Why blackberry apps cannot do network i/o AT ALL outside of North America without BIS?

Question

I was told by a consultant in a 3 hours discussion that basically blackberry 3rd party apps (Distributed through AppWorld or not) cannot perform any network I/O outside of North America without becoming an alliance member. Is this true?

Basically the story is that only North America can make use of APN connection, anywhere else in the world you have to rely on BIS for your network connection. And the network connection over BIS can only be made to a server that is provisioned by RIM. You will have to become and alliance member in order to have your server provisioned.

This sounds kinda silly to me, because if I am a third party developer I cannot do network io at all outside of NA. That's a huge limitation on the AppWorld developers!

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I'm not talking about a network socket over Wifi connection, only concerned with network connectivity over the cell network.

Answer 1

Here's some official documentation for Accessing BlackBerry Data Services Using Wi-Fi Networks (PDF) from BlackBerry.

I would be surprised if you can't do wifi anywhere it is available, but maybe you are right. Here's a link the UK support pages, which aren't very clear about restrictions.

This probably doesn't help, but I bought a Bold 9700 without a contract here in North America and my BlackBerry application could connect to my home wifi network without any problems.

I will be in the UK in January so I can test it out then!

Answer 2

A little Googling turned up a number of APN lists for carriers. Here is one with one or two carriers that aren't in North America, it specifies iPhone, but generally APN settings by carrier are hardware agnostic. Of course I can't test them out since I am.

Answer 3

I think that you may have been misinformed, or perhaps munging a couple of issues.

You can set up APN for many carriers: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Connect-to-Internet-with-Your-BlackBerry-without-Paying-For-Data-Plan http://www.blackberryfaq.com/index.php/Carrier%5Fspecific%5FAPN/TCP%5Fsettings

This is not "Blackberry Data Services", which do seem to have some restriction based on the carrier's provisioning. Some applications - Verichat and Berry411 are mentioned in the above links - are clearly not restricted to the Blackberry Data Services, though, so I think that would be a bit overgeneralized to say -all- third party applications. (Perhaps the consultant meant third party applications that integrate with Exchange/BES have to go over a BIS link? Or applications that require a secure interface?)

I also think it's not quite fair to say "outside of North America," as such services are clearly in use in the EU and India, at least, where various providers (O2, Vodafone) sell Blackberrys to actual customers.

I haven't used a Blackberry in several years, but even in my days there was a differentiation between Blackberry data and TCP data sent to the internet, with Opera being a ubiquitous example of a non-Blackberry connection.

Of the three answerers, we seem skeptical, and as far as I can tell none of us has been able to find anything to back up the consultant's claim, and indeed have found several counterpoints that seem to indicate the issue is at least incompletely understood. Have you considered asking the consultant via e-mail to clarify?

Answer 4

This forum post has APN info for several carriors outside of the US and it appears that if that is correctly set in the device then 3rd party apps should work:

Blackberry Forums

Answer 5

Blackberry can definitely connect using APN outside north america. I've recently made an app (on the storm) and it it worked fine here in the Netherlands.

The real nightmare of APN on the blackberry is not that it doesn't work, it has to do with the fact that the app has to have the APN settings IN the app itself (instead of being able to use the settings as specified in the global phone settings. Using these settings things just won't work).

Can you imagine a user having to figure out his/her APN settings in every app they download?!?

Answer 6

Not True. I have a APN Data plan for my Blackberry here in Mexico using Telcel as a carrier. I also have the normal BIS connection. The reason I need the APN is because my company installs a BB app that needs TCP connection.

Oh, and by the way,

You are right in that all carriers probably have APN settings. Unfortunately, no data plan in the world includes APN network traffic except north america. So yes the application will work but it'll cost them a lot outside of their already paid data plan. – erotsppa

My BIS+APN data plan is unlimited, so no extra charges besides the rent.