Where is BB not allowed?
 

Hello everyone!

I'm new here so please forgive me if my question seems a bit basic... I think I posted this quuestion int he wrong forum so I am going to put it here instead:

We recently adopted BB and BES as our new GLOBAL corporate standard. Rollout thus far has been easy in most countries...but then I had a trouble ticket come in from Moscow...stating that they are not allowed to use BES if its hosted outside Russia. Trying to find out if this is true, I found an old post from 2006 (46946-bb-moscow-russia.html) on this site about it, and basically it looks like back then it was a known issue and Blackberry hosted out of a country other than russia was not allowed...

So I am now wondering 1) is this still true or does my user have old info 2)Is there a Helpdesk at RIM that can answer questions about Non-US accounts (I called care and they told me to call MTS in Moscow, who I am sure I wont be able to communicate with) and most importantly 3) Are there many countries where BB is just not allowed like Moscow and if so, please let me know where I will run into an issue?

Thanks!!! Any and all comments or advice would be much appreciated

Wirelessly posted

If you are a private corporation you may pretty much host your BES to Mars. If you're rolling out infrastructure on taxpayers money it's a different story. I believe for a global rollout you mauy need to be more concerned about BlackBerry service availability on that particular slice of land rather than legislation that prohibits hosting of BES to far and foreign TLDs.

Are the BES Admin for your company? You should have a RIM support contact if you are.

Your post speaks to two different things.

1. Are their countries where the use of BB is prohibited
2. Data routing due to international law / regulation

1. The only place I was aware of was Saudi Arbia or Pakastain and that their military wanted access too search message flow.

2. I know one of our international subs had this and was the reason we had to maintain a seperate exchange / BES there due to consumers information regulation. I want to say UK or France had that ..

Really this is an issue for your legal team to run with.

Hmmm, never heard or considered this. I agree with the-economist, that if a private company is paying dearly for MPLS circuits to provide 200ms response times to servers at the far reaches of the globe, then the BlackBerry threads carried by said circuits are fair game.

Hi, thanks all for the responses!! Yes, I am a BES admin for our company, but I am so new to it...I've never had any training at all and I'm just learning the ropes. We are a publicly traded company. But I still dont know if that means that Moscow can demand that we have a seperate BES server for our 1 remote employee out in Moscow. I guess its always possible that the employee is incorrect or making this all up so he doesnt have to give up his iPhone (we are getting SO MUCH pushback...people are attached to iPhones..), but I have to investigate it still....

I do have a RIM support contract - but I thought it was just for system support, not for issues like this... If I need to find out about known issues regarding global access to the BES from countries that dont allow it, is it best to go to them? Thanks everyone!!!

Wirelessly posted

Your RIM contact is the most authoritative source of information about ALL things that have to do with your BES infrastructure. If they can't help you they will offer alternatives. Call them.

I can't say that I blame them. Trying to get used to a BB after using an iPhone for a while must be rough. I just dusted out my old 8700c because I'm testing BES Express and I can't even imagine going back to it.

We've had several people give back the iPhones and ask for their BlackBerrys back. All depends on your wants and needs.

Maybe it's time to upgrade
 

Christ the 8700c is over 5 years old and gone EOL. Get an up to date Blackberry. And yes I've also had a bunch of people "want" an iPhone and decide it's not for them.

I was using an 8700c a few months ago. Works well with BBM5.

Still have a user with a 8700c being used for last 4 years. Maybe he should send his 9700 back to me since he never touched it.

I've used some of the newer BB models and to be honest, I prefer the scroll wheel on the 8700 over the track ball. I know that the new BB's have new features but they're not all that different from the old ones. They do the job but there is nothing revolutionary about them. The (touch screen) Storm doesn't do it for me either. I used to be a BB person and I like many others, I fought the iPhone for a while but that was just me being stubborn. There was no rational explanation for it. The iPhone takes time to get used to but once you do, it's very difficult to imagine yourself using anything else. Despite its few short comings, overall it really is the best phone out there.

Sorry for hijacking the thread!

This is true. My friend faced similar problem. They just don't sell BES data plan in Russia to individuals with blackberries. They only sell BES data plan to companies that could prove they host BES server in country.
Case closed.

In general, if you could buy BES data plan from local wireless carrier you are all set.

Something we are looking into at present because our sales staff in the Far East can't get unlimited wordwide tariffs easily is to source the device and SIM here in the UK, on our unlimited worldwide tariff and ship them the device with voice disabled.

OK, they will have to carry two devices but it may be a workaround worth investigating.

I carry both because I support both.

Hands down, my 9700 trumps the iPhone 3GS for business use. I pull the iPhone out when I want to browse the internet or play games.

Oh and the trackpad is SO much nicer than the trackball - having to replace/clean those ruddy things was a pain!

I can respect the trackwheel as it was a really easy means to navigate but I wouldn't give up the new functionality of a 9700. Higher screen resolution, wifi, MicroSD, Video / Audio playback, Camera, etc. I guess if all you do is email it's worth considering but I believe it's stuck on EDGE only.

I've had iPhones (all 3) since they came out, every major device from the carriers comes across my desk and I cannot say the iPhone is the best "phone", Have to agree with Target - great for what it excels at (web, "Apps") but thats about it. Pitiful battery life, no tethering, no background processes, etc. At the end of the day - I use a Blackberry 85% of the day and when I have some free time (not often) I play around on the iPhone or use it as a iPod more then anything. But that's likely due to I have abundate choices (perk of being a mobility admin).

Glad I'm not in Russia :)

Thank you everyone for your replies!!

I suppose a workaround could be sending them a device from the US with Voice disabled... let them carry 2 devices.

I tried to take your earlier recommendations and called my RIM support - they could not tell me if this is a true statement from my Russian colleague or not - they said if the carrier sells BES data Plan, then the users can connect. But they could not advise me on whether or not I had any legal issues to concern myself with or where else I might run into this issue. I wish I knew that before we went down this path... before we did this rollout we were told Blackberry works everywhere... they left out the part about how in some countries they wont sell it ;)

So my next question is open for comment to all - where have you personally run in to these sorts of 'legal issues' globally, where you were forced to provide alternate solution or make them carry 2 phones because it was not possible to get a BB data plan? thanks!!!

Freshly released by RIM BES Express runs with BIS data plan. You could deploy it and move these users on BES Express if they can buy BIS data plan locally in their countries.

Except of course on Verizon, reports of which have surfaced that they have been requiring users of BESX to move to a BES data plan. :?

Now this sounds interesting!! Is this an app that can be dowloaded direct to the phone or does it go onto the BES server? Have you tried it? What'd you think? They can get BIS in Russia, so that seems like a possibly good fix for me! Thanks.