[hypedave]

Is it possible to get AIM/YAHOO Instant messaging and BES without the Data Plan? My provider is T-Mobile. I no longer use the data feature plan that much. Any advise would be helpful, thanks!

[gfisher99]

All of the above require a data plan.

[hypedave]

Can anyone else confirm if this is true on the Blackberry Pearl?

[drewdinardo]

To use AIM or BES you need a data plan. You can use Tmobile's 19.99 plan if all you want is AIM but it is more if you are going to use BES, I believe 29.99 a month.

[bfrye]

Of course it's true. How are you supposed to transmit data without a data plan?

I suppose AIM you find an SMS client or use something like trillian pro to route them to your phone via SMS, but you would incur a ton of SMS charges then, probably more than the $19.99 a month for the dataplan, and honestly, the SMS clients just plain suck.

[TheBigNewt]

Originally Posted by bfrye

Of course it's true. How are you supposed to transmit data without a data plan?

I think he meant can you SMS/txt without a data plan just like you can on every other phone out there. I never had a data plan on Verizon and I could TXT for 10 cents per use. I could MMS photos for .25 also. You should be able to do it on Tmoblile with the Pearl without a data plan, right (I have one)?
But using the IM clients does require a data plan because the client connects via EDGE. But regular TXT does not.

[hypedave]

I plan on using the built in OZ Instant Messaging client and sign up with the 500 messages plan, if this is possible. But are you sure that the BES requires a data plan?

[Willie115]

BES of course requires the data plan, e-mail goes through data and you need the data plan, you cannot use MMS without the data plan on the Pearl.