How to Roam with a Blackberry ?

So here is the story – I am currently using the Blackberry 8900 (curve). I am heading off to Mauritius for two weeks and obviously need to stay in touch with work and friends. The most obvious method is via my trusted Blackberry. Boy was I wrong !

It started before I left South Africa. For three weeks I phoned my Cellular service provider and was told on several different stories about how my Blackberry will work and will not work and not sure if it will work.

The theory was simple – get a Pre-Paid data SIM card in Mauritius and put it into the Blackberry phone and it will work. I will be able to make and receive calls and the Blackberry services will work. I was told each Blackberry has its own PIN so all you need is a “transport” layer which will be the prepaid SIM.

Eh…WRONG

I put in the SIM card and indeed I could make and receive calls – however none of the Blackberry services worked. No email, no messenger – nothing. So basically I have a phone and no other comms.

Luckily I had enabled international roaming on the phone before I left South Africa, so I could put my home SIM and get my mail. However at R128 per Megabyte, its insane to keep it on all the time and so I only switched it on once a day and got only headers for my mail. I then took out my SIM card and replaced it with the local SIM so I could use my phone – The blackberry takes a good 5 minutes to switch on from the time you put in the battery. So this is now a real pain !

The long and short of it:

1. Blackberry is awesome – but unless you are willing to pay the roaming fees, it is a painful roaming device.
2. If you are roaming and need access to both your phone and email – rather take a phone that you can use a pre-pain SIM card in. For your data, take your laptop with the 3G modem and purchase a data SIM card for it.
3. I created a FILTER on my mail to only deliver headers only. This allowed me to at least see who is mailing me and what the subject is. I then can choose which mails to download.
4. There are some countries that do have a Blackberry services but in most cases this is on a POST PAY system and not on a pre-paid basis.

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