Blackberry email on e60, T-mobile

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palsonly31

New member
hey all, i was wondering if anyone had any experience with using blackberry email on t-mobile. i tried to get the blackberry "app" or whatever from nokia, but it said my configuration (tmobile + e60) was not supported. so i change it to a different carrier, and it had it...so i installed that, and it gave me a "BlackBerry" email option, with a bunch of configuration options. is there a better way? anyone know it?
 
okay, i just read what i wrote and it doesn't make any damn sense at all. sorry, im exhausted.

i went to nokia.com, and ran the blackberry configuration wizard, which tells you to select the carrier and the phone, and it will give you the blackberry application to install the needed settings.
when i put in United States + T-mobile + e60, it told me that my carrier didn't have a configuration for my model.

i changed the carrier to cingular, and it gave me a .sisx to install, which then put a blackberry option in my email settings. is this the thing i need? or is there a better way? i am going to call t-mobile tomorrow about this, but i want to have all the information they will need prepared, in order to make things go smoothly.

does anyone have experience with the e60 on t-mobile usa?
 
You didn't really say what's wrong (I think?) here, so maybe after you've had a nap and a cookie (hey, it works for me ) let us know beyond this what point you're stuck at; the E60 works just fine on T-Mobile in the general phone sense, I had zero problems.

You have the BB applet installed, sure -- but do you have either a BIS or BES server to connect it to? That's the whole point here, those configuration options you mentioned -- that's where you're supposed to be connecting it to the upstream BIS (T-Mobile) or BES (your company) servers that will push out service books and so forth to you...

(My E60 is on loan to a developer learning Flash Lite, so I don't have it to look at with you. But, I am using BB and T-Mobile's BIS service right now)
 
well basically my question is - is the little applet i downloaded and installed all i need to do (so far) on my end, before turning it over to t-mobile to get my phone reg'd in their BIS system, and continue configuration from there. for example, i dont see anything in the applet to define email account information, is that done through t-mobile?
i guess more or less i need a tutorial on how blackberry service works in general.

so lets say.....where i work, we have blackberries(is that the pluralization?) and are running a server (which i doubt we are, but lets pretend) could i theoretically go to the IT head and have him set it up so i can get push email through them, as opposed to paying t-mobile for it?
 
I'm currently using Blackberry BIS on T-Mobile with a Cingular branded Nokia 9300 (Series 80) and it works fine. I know what you mean regarding the software download from Nokia. If I go to the Nokia site and configure a software download for BlackBerry Connect on T-Mobile, it would say "not available". My Nokia 9300 came with BlackBerry Connect already installed and actually pre-configured to work in Cingular's network. BUt it works fine in T-Mobile's network, after you configure the data access point for T-Mobile's network--fastest way to do this is to have a Network Provision message sent to your phone, either by T-Mobile rep or through the Nokia web site.

You would need to pay for the BLackBerry Add-on plan in order to get GPRS/Edge service and a BIS e-mail account. The price is a very reasonable $20/month.
 
ahhhhhh thats exactly what i wanted to hear. ill call them when i get to work and have it setup. i'll be getting the 29.99/month plan, because currently i use the VPN connection which doesn't block any ports (i use a few different internet applications, none of which use port 80)
its only 10 bucks a month more than what i pay for VPN access, and im dropping my family plan from 69/month to the 49/month plan anyway, so it should balance out.
the only thing im really risking at this point is the ability to maintain a grandfathered plan (can't go back if its cancelled) but on the other hand, i dont really see myself saying at any point "hm, i really dont like having push email"
 
Right so to continue on, where BB as a product is different is that you don't configure any email accounts on the handset itself, you will be doing it through the web interface of My T-Mobile (once you buy the service add-on).

It'll go something like this:

1) log into My T-Mobile, and you may or may not need to switch your "preferred device" to a real BB to get the next options; you'll need to play with it. You *may* need to enter the PIN (does the BBConnect S60 software issue you a PIN??) like a real BB device; a PIN is sorta like an IMEI, but not really -- it's like.... like a serial number for your hardware, but it's used for other stuff (see below about Service Books). All real BB devices have a PIN, and that PIN is associated with T-Mobile's BIS service.

2) click on the "support for my device", and then on the right there will be a menu option called BlackBerry Email Accounts. You click that to get to a special page. There may be other ways to get here, but that's how I do it.

3) you first set an email address for your BB device (well in your case your E60), it will be @tmo.blackberry.net. Don't give this out to anyone! (spam spam green eggs and spam) I repeat, do NOT give this out to anyone, and choose something more obscure than common. (I chose a sorta common one, and started getting spam right away -- I changed it to something obscure and now it's clean)

4) now use the webUI wizard in front of you and add email accounts -- I've done GMail and Yahoo and so on without any problems. It's as simple as entering your email address and password, and the T-Mobile webUI figures out the rest.

5) on the left, you see this menu option called "Service Books" -- you click that, and then click the option that says "Send service books to my device". Think of this as sending a download configuration.

That's pretty much how it works -- your question about if your company ran a server (that would be called BES, BlackBerry Enterprise Server) would be done by IT; they would have the PIN of your BB device (or S60 BBConnect) in the server, and configure it for you and push Service Books out to you, just like BIS with T-Mobile.
 
you guys rock. this is why i love hofo!

i was having a problem getting my pin and imei setup on t-mobile.com, but after a little while i got a message from them saying it was all setup and registered. got 4 email accounts setup and working, my only real complaint about Bb email so far would be the fact that it shows as 4 separate email accounts, not one big happy BB email thingy..i guess thats better this way tho. i'd like the option to make them all show up in one inbox.

now, i am a little irritated about one thing.. i was told "the 19.99 blackberry connect is unlimited data, and blackberry email.. the enterprise edition is like what you have, VPN internet + BBEmail" so i signed up for the enterprise because that is what i wanted.. so now im stuck unable to have full internet functionality of my phone (ssh/ftp, etc.) which is pretty irritating. on the other hand, i DID manage to get on irc using wap., so if that is that case, i could just drop my plan down to the 19.99 (i was told that the data side of all the bb packages are exactly the same) and thus save myself 10 bucks. its got wifi too, which can be used when needed..i just like having irc access on the train in the morning.

is wap.voicestream.com or whatever (the wap server) slower than the internet3.voicestream.com server? what can i do to remedy this? i cant connect using blackberry.net APN, tho im not confident that its not a provisioning issue at this point, or a configuration problem.
 
If you can't get on to ssh/ftp, then you most likely have a setting wrong, as the BB is fully opened up with the exception of the port for rtsp (Real sucks anyway, don't worry about it).

Go to your Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Access Points -> t-zones -> options key -> Advanced. Make sure that the proxy settings there are removed (since they aren't needed at all and can cause issues with certain net services). I SSH with mine all the time, shouldn't have any issues.

-olly
 
awesome. that is wonnnnnnderful news! i just saved myself 10 bucks a month because of this. you guys rock. so now im connecting through blackberry.net, not through t-mobile? i guess thats how it looks... im trying to understand this whole thing.
 
I'm not 100% sure, but I think so -- RIM owns the netblock that your device shows up as out in the 'net, so they're definitely doing something sekrit behind the scenes to shuffle your BB data around. It makes sense sorta when on a real BB device you have to hand-enter the APN (wap.voicestream.com) to get some stuff to work, as you'd go through T-Mo for that and not RIM.

I've noticed that sites load a *lot* faster on my BB using the builtin browser, which I am pretty sure goes through RIM servers; I bet they run some sort of proxy-cache to give us a bit of a boost in performance. The same site on Opera Mini (which uses the T-Mo APN) doesn't load as fast. *shrug*

edit: BTW I saved $5-$10 a month too by just switching to "BB Minutes & Mail" plan, and gained unlimited SMS in the process in return for losing free nights and weekend (never used them)
 
i dropped my plan down to 700 minutes, with unlmtd night/weekends. i had 1000 peak, and last month i used like 1200 minutes (total, between 2 phones, including nights/weekends) so i managed to shave off 10 bucks there..im happy!
 
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