[droctii]

Hi folks,

I have a quick question. I am thinking of getting an unlocked GSM 7280 to use with my unlocked SIM card from abroad here in the US. While I'm visiting the USA, I usually roam on AT&T, Cingular or T-Mobile networks. I am wondering how do I go about using setting up a blackberry so that my international number stays the same, but I have access to the data services (email and IM features).

Thanks

[Gothalyptic]

You'd most probably have to call customer service of the provider you're looking at, T-Mobile will be cheaper, but AT&T will give you wider coverage. They *MIGHT* be able to set up a temporary account for you just for the bwc, then you'd have to subscribe to an mds/bes to use the im stuff. Someone else might be of more help, but this would be my guess.

[droctii]

Will the service providers over here allow me to keep my international number and just have me pay for the BWC or whatever?

[Mark Rejhon]

Another way is to use call-forwarding on your international number to your USA number. However, this may not always be supported. This is worth looking into.

Then you can just get a plain Blackberry-enabled SIM card separately, with a separate phone number. (Others will confirm whether this works or not... Anyone?)

[droctii]

Forgive my ignorance, but would a Blackberry do data roaming in, say Europe or the Caribbean?

[Mark Rejhon]

droctii,

My Canadian BlackBerry will data-roam on most carriers in any fully industrialized country in the world, and to some of the lesser ones. Which means yes to Europe. For Caribbean, yes to portions of it (not all of it though). Also, my 7280 does not have the 900 Mhz band which the upcoming 7290 will have.

Rogers has a maximum price of 5 Canadian cents per kilobyte for the most expensive data-roaming agreement. So knowing how much data costs, is a lot more predictable than making a voice phone call in a random country...

[Skive]

Originally Posted by Mark Rejhon

Another way is to use call-forwarding on your international number to your USA number. However, this may not always be supported.

I don't know if any north american carriers allow that, but none of the european carriers i have tried let you do that sort of thing.