RIM 6710/5810 in Europe

[headtailgrep]

People, I currently have a 6710 user (Rogers) out in Europe, and we are having problems getting data service running.

I'm told we recieved ONE email at the airport (London UK) but so far nothing else.

Rogers support told me since Rogers has no announced agreements with GPRS, that it's a matter of finding an open network and using it.

I've asked the user to switch networks and keep trying until one works. However, calls to Rogers support have not given me any further info. I managed to find out which networks Rogers has agreements with in UK and Germany, but only for GSM.

I'd like other users who are on Rogers (especially) or even non-rogers 6710/5810/etc to give us their user experiences getting data service in Europe or abroad.

[JimBobJoeRay]

This will be remedied in the near future, as the roaming contracts are added. Your best bet would be to contact your place of purchase and ask about adding European roaming.

[headtailgrep]

Yes, but Rogers doesn't have any europe roaming. SO right now, i'm looking to get information on the 'current state' of roaming in europe. Mostly, this will come from user experience..

i'm VERY close to calling these european providers that Rogers has given me in order to get more information regarding GPRS roaming from foreign devices..

[Physical_Layer]

Most likely (and I have no experience here), any GSM roaming partner will also be open to GPRS roaming right now, HOWEVER you must remember that the 6710 is a dual-band radio. The 1900 works in North America and the 900 is suited to Europe. Most older GSM networks in Europe are on 900MHz but some are 1800MHz only, so your guy has to be in an area that is 1) covered by a Rogers GSM roaming partner area and 2) a 900MHz network.

I think Vodafone or O2 should suffice in the UK, but not sure elsewhere in Europe.

[Skive]

GPRS roaming is entirely seperate from the gsm roaming that almost every carrier allows these days, probably the only american carrier that is certain to have coverage in europe would be voicestream as they are part of the t-mobile group.

Incidentally was the one email you received definitely an email or could it have simply been a registration sms from a network they had roamed onto for gsm?

[NJBlackBerry]

And T-Mobile's GPRS data roaming is not quite working yet...

[Skive]

It works quite happily between the different tmobile companies in europe, i guess they still have some things to sort out between there and north america. One obvious problem for them will be that t-mobile us will use 900/1900 devices whereas tmobile uk is an 1800 network. :D

[NJBlackBerry]

Right you are. The 6710 won't use the T-Mobile 1800 MHz network; it will use the O2 900 MHz network. When the tri-band GSM BlackBerry comes out (whenver), that will work on the T-Mobile 1800 MHz network.

[JimBobJoeRay]

You have 2 options:
Rogers should have the ability to add European roaming to your SIM card, but if they don't yet, or you can't find anyone there that knows they can, then you need to get another SIM card which is enabled for European GSM and GPRS. This might be a better solution anyway, as the calls will be local, and roaming will be much cheaper.

[headtailgrep]

Calls to rogers support yield people who don't know or can't do anything for me.

This experience has been excruciatingly painful.. I even have people at Rim looking into this.

Rogers should have sold it and outright said that european roaming does not work.

I still don't know if any rogers customers have been lucky enough to get data roaming, or if anyone (on other providers) for that matter have similarly had data roaming in europe.

Anyone? Are you in north america but been overseas with roaming?

[savada]

Blackberry 6710 GPRS is not working in Switzerland. T-Mobile phone service is great but no Blackberry signal. Any ideas?