Costs more to have a Blackberry with AT&T?

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@madrod83 wrote:

I tried using the chat feature and this simple question seemed impossible for "Karen" to answer on the chat. Is it outsourced? How difficult was that question!

 

I noticed there is a charge specifically for having a Blackberry in addition to my iphones on my plan, why??

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I'm not aware of any such charge although it's been a couple of years since we last had a Blackberry on our account. When I go through the motions of ordering a new phone I don't see any difference in prices between a Blackberry and an iPhone. Which charge are you referring to?

It's listed like this on my bill with the new plans. I have 3 iPhones on this plan and one Blackberry. Its a Blackberry 9800 and visual voicemail? I never even knew such thing existed.

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@madrod83 wrote:

It's listed like this on my bill with the new plans. I have 3 iPhones on this plan and one Blackberry. Its a Blackberry 9800 and visual voicemail? I never even knew such thing existed.

 

Mobile Share Value Plan 10GB

$100.00

 

Mobile Share Value BlackBerry w/Visual VM

$40.00

 

 

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Unless you bought the BlackBerry with a 2 year contract you should be getting $25 credit. Pricing on the MSV 10GB plan is $15/line when you bring your own phone or buy it with AT&T Next program. The $40/line is for devices bought under the contract after 2/4/2014. I've no idea if BB 9800 supports visual VM, but I know a lot of people weren't getting the correct pricing per line on this plan and had to call CS to get credited. If you bought your BB prior to 2/4/2014, you should be paying only $15 for it. It's supposed to be billed as $40 with a $25 credit, so the total bill for your 4 lines should be $160 plus fees & taxes.

There shouldn't be any etra pricing on your bill for a Blackberry,BUT I'm not totally sure either. When I had a Blackberry( years ago..) I noticed there was an extra $10 fee to use a certain service(can't remember exactly what it was though).

My understanding was that BlackBerry has it's own network or programing to acces the network and that's why it's a seperate type of plan.  I was told originally that I would have to continue to have a seperate charge from the two i-phones on my family plan.

Now I've started having some problems with my BlackBerry and I've been told that the new family shared plans it's all the same and that BlackBerry data is the same as iphone data.  Not that I have a great deal of confidence in what a sales rep is telling me at this point.

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@GradeACPBEA wrote:

My understanding was that BlackBerry has it's own network or programing to acces the network and that's why it's a seperate type of plan.  I was told originally that I would have to continue to have a seperate charge from the two i-phones on my family plan.

 

Now I've started having some problems with my BlackBerry and I've been told that the new family shared plans it's all the same and that BlackBerry data is the same as iphone data.  Not that I have a great deal of confidence in what a sales rep is telling me at this point.

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What you're talking about in the first paragraph is the BIS that all legacy BlackBerrys (running OS 7.1 and older) had to have to work.  BIS was BBs own Network Operations Center (NOC) that all data ran through before going out into the world. It also provided for highly compressed data and helped keep data usage down.  But it also slowed browsing the internet to a virtual crawl - even on 3G that some of the later BBs could do - such as the 9800, 9100, 9300, 9810, 9860 and 9900.  Being tied to the BIS was indicated on your phone by that little 4-dot BB logo next to either the 3G network indicator or the wi-fi indicator (the 4-dots being an abbreviated version of the regular 7-dot BlackBerry logo).  Older phones running only 2G Edge would simply show "EDGE" (in all caps) to indicate a BIS connection.  AT&T provided that BIS access automatically on all BB phones, and they did so without any extra cost beyond the regular cost of the phone and whatever data plan you had. 

As a side note, this was the one thing we in the U.S. (Canada too) lucked out on.  In all other countries, BIS is an extra charge - sometimes a very expensive extra charge depending on the region.  

BES - the Enterprise version of BIS, and much more secure because it runs from a company's specific server that you would work for and get emial from - was an extra cost.  Usually a $15 extra charge.  But you had to specifically ask for BES to be added to your plan if you needed it.

Visual Voicemail is just part of it by default even if you don't use it, and there is no cost difference there either if you don't have it.

Current BlackBerry phones running BB10 (the Z10 and Q10 that AT&T offers) are a different animal.  They no longer use BIS.  Just regular data that all other phones use. It also means that BB10 phones use a whole lot more data - about what an Android phone uses, so you need to watch your plan caps if you have them (I've kept my unlimited plans that I started back in 2007).  So, the AT&T rep was correct in that regard. The phone itself is still tied to the BB servers (thus, you still see the 4-dot logo next to the network indicator), sort of like a VPN, but it's how BBM is still used, and how the phone lets you know of updates.

I have been using the Torch 9810 since 2012 and there is no additional fee on the billing statement. On previous voice and data plan there the Blackberry's have different description on the billing statement but pretty much the same charged amount as those of android-based smartphones.

BES/BIS is no longer available for both OSv7 and BB 10 smartphones especially the Web login for the free hosted blackberry emails.

Word of advice... if you are going with the Q10 and the Next program, then just get the Q10 directly from the Shop Blackberry US Web site. A good chance is that you can get it $100 off the retail pricing compared to AT&T Next plan that pretty much adds up to the full retail pricing.

Not sure if the $15 or $25 monthly discount will apply for those new Mobile Value Share plans for BYOD (for new accounts or existing Mobile Value Share plan holders) but I am currently receiving a discounted monthly access fee for each line. Then again, I have the grandfathered data plan.