There seems to be some confusion about whats happening with the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) at the moment so it's time to set the record straight. The BlackBerry Internet Service (BlackBerry Messenger/BBM, email, social networks and instant messaging, browsing, BlackBerry World etc) will remain alongside BlackBerry 10.  Also, that the packages for BlackBerry Internet Service (available from carrier partners), will remain, especially in emerging markets).  MTN in South Africa has publically stated below that they will not discontinue support for BlackBerry Internet Service.  The coverage reads as if BlackBerry Internet Service is being discontinued entirely. This has been reported by more than one news site over the last day.

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Three UK is currently offering customers who purchase a BlackBerry smartphone on Pay As You Go from them free BIS for a year. That's right, no need to pay £5 a month for your BlackBerry data for one year.

One thing to note with this offer is that you must top up at least £10 every 28 days for the offer to stay valid. With your £10 top-up you can get the All-in-One 10 Add-on. This gives you 100 mins, 3000 texts and 500MB of data a month. 100 mins seems pretty low for some but now there's BBM 7 with voice calls so that may help out if you have other friends and family members with a BlackBerry device. Alternatively, you can top-up £15 and get the All-in-One 15 Add-on. This plan gives you 300 mins, 3000 texts and All-You-Can-Eat data every month. Since you won't have to pay the extra £5 a month for BIS, this plan sounds pretty good.

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The SIM only mobile network, giffgaff, now supports BlackBerry services. So, you can now use a BlackBerry device if you're on the network you can get BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry email and internet. Just like with all UK networks you will subscribe to a BlackBerry add-on which is paid on top of your goodybag, giffgaff's name for a tariff/plan. Where other networks charge £5 per month for the BlackBerry Internet Service, giffgaff charges £3, in keeping with their value for money business model.

One thing to keep in mind is that you must the BlackBerry add-on needs to be paid for at the same time as your goodybag each month. Unfortunately, this does mean that if you've already got a goodybag going this month, you will have to wait until next month before you can add the BlackBerry service onto your account. The BlackBerry add-on cannot be purchased if you haven't a goodybag either. You can add the BlackBerry service to your account the same way to purchase a goodybag.

For those of you that don't know, giffgaff is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) meaning that it does not have its own network infrastructure and so have arrangements with bigger network operators in order to provide its customers with a service. giffgaff runs on the O2 networks.

The BlackBerry add-on will be available to purchase starting from November 24th.

Source: Tracy and Matt 

We've spoke about BIS 4.1 coming to North America soon and the latest Sprint PlayBook gives us a good indication as to when. Unless plans have changed, it appears as though Sprint customers (and maybe other carriers) will be enabling BIS 4.1 tomorrow at some point. Most likely in the wee hours of the morning to limit the impact on services.  That's about it for now -- we'll just have to wait and see if they roll it out or if it's been put off for another date, which does sometimes happen.

Learn more about BIS 4.1

Some good news for those of you who live in Europe. RIM and carriers have rolled out BlackBerry Internet Service 4.1 after having completed the transition in Asia Pacific last month. European users, and in this case -- Alain from Paris are now reporting larger attachments and various other features BIS 4.1 brings are now working as expected. Next on the list for rollout is North America, you can jump on past the break for a refresher of what's new in BIS 4.1. Keep in mind, some features may not be available to all devices and may not fully be enabled until BIS 4.1 is rolled out to everyone.

Thanks, Alain!

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We heard back in March that we would soon see an update to BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS). As revealed back then, we will be seeing improvements to email including large email and native attachment support, inbox priming for new account integrations and additional language support. In addition to this, changes to the email flow on SIM swap means you'll want to be extra careful when switching devices, especially if you plan on selling your old BlackBerry. That's right, make sure you do a security wipe before passing it on. Who doesn't do that anyway? Seems like common sense to me. You can check out the full Overview from the BlackBerry Knowledge Base after the break.

For those of you wondering how you get the BIS 4.1 update, well, there is no way to get it, exactly. The update will be rolled out by RIM at some point and pushed to your device.

Source: RIM

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BlackBerry users will soon be getting a much needed update to the BlackBerry Internet Service, commonly known as BIS. According to information N4BB received, we can expect to see BIS 4.1 come in waves with Asia Pacific first (September 10th), Europe next (September 23rd) followed finally by North America (October 8th).

It looks like new BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry OS 7 will have increased message limit sizes, including the body of the email and attachments sent/received. This means fewer truncated emails and a reduction in the amount of times a user will need to hit "receive more". It is unknown at this time if these changes will also be available for pre-BB7 devices.

There are also changes being made to email accounts, such as when adding a new email address to your BIS account, the last 20 emails on the server will be pushed to your device. Additional changes include added security for email accounts and the ability to switch SIMs with no interruption to email service.

To see more of what's in store with the BIS 4.1 update, check out the rest of the slides after the break, and if you'd like to discuss the changes head on over to the forums.

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Having seen BIS 3.2 released to APAC and EMEA users already, many folks in North America should now be waking up to find that their BlackBerry Internet Services has now been updated as well. Reports from all major carriers indicate that the update went as planned and the new options are now available. Those options include:

• Google Calendar Sync - The option to sync your Gmail calendar with your BlackBerry calendar
• Automatic Login Enhancement - Username and Password in order to access the BlackBerry Internet Service no longer required when on your BlackBerry
• Show and Hide Password Option - Subscribers can choose to show or hide the passwords for all email addresses that need to be validated by clicking the Show password or Hide password options.
• New Password Criteria - Newly created passwords for BlackBerry Internet Service accounts and BlackBerry email addresses must meet new criteria.
  
  • Must include 8 to 16 characters
  • Must include at least one letter and one number
  • Cannot include the word "password"
  • Cannot include the user name of the BlackBerry Internet Service account or BlackBerry email address that the password is associated with

Some long awaited additions there. Have at it folks and let us know how the calendar sync is working out for you all should you opt to use it. Word is it works with Google Apps as well which is a plus.

The forums are filling up. The CrackBerry support email is getting lots of folks stating issues and we're led to believe we may have an outage on our hands. Some folks are reporting slow web browsing, email delays and general connectivity issues. Thus far, seems limited to North America but, if you're in another area and experiencing issues then please, let us know in the comments. I'm on Rogers and not seeing this yet, how about you all?

Seems there is no shortage of BlackBerry Internet Service information these days. The BIS 3.0/3.1 documents contain a few long awaited changes. The folks over at BBLeaks were once again tipped off to more BIS 3.0 information. After having looked at the files, some of what we had learned from the last leak was once again confirmed. Check out the run down.

• GMail - The enhanced plugin will get an update which allows for read/unread status of email.
• Open Office- Open Office documents will gain support for presentations, text, speadsheets.
• WMA Support - Long awaited handling of WM Audio will be supported now in attachments.
• Email Setup /Validation - An enhanced email set up application will be added. Increasing security for end user and methods of email validation/revalidation uponPIN changes.
• Carrier Enhancements - Error messages will now be more indicative of who they should be related to. ie: "If you are having a problem please contact <insert carrier>.
• Other -Carrier based tools such as BIS Admin which help with troubleshooting customers.

Nice updates most importantly out of all of it would be the GMail, Open Office and WMA support as I see it. The email validation and settings is something that some users will appreciate especially first time users, those familiar won't even likely notice until it comes time to change a device. Can't say I like having to wait for all these changes to happen but it's good to know they are coming. Now how about a new browser since I didn't really have an issue with the email before?

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