6710 GPRS not working in Switzerland

[savada]

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

Any ideas?

[NJBlackBerry]

Has it worked for you anywhere outside of the US? I know there are issues with global roaming in general - GPRS doesn't work in the UK (same symptoms - GSM works fine). I know T-Mobile is working with their partners to resolve this in the UK.

[savada]

It worked fine in Canada. I thought issues had been resolved in a few countries like the UK, Germany, Norway, Poland and Spain. Two weeks ago a T-Mobile tech guy confirmed that it would work in Switzerland but it didn't.

Has anyone successfully used the Blackberry 6710 outside the US and Canada? And if so, can you please advise which country you received the signal in.

Thanks!

[NJBlackBerry]

Good luck. T-Mobile told me that "It appears that the UK will be up and running for Blackberry by the end of the year".

I don't think GPRS on a 6710 works outside of North America.

[savada]

Thanks for the heads up. When you get a chance, take a look at T-Mobile's web page where they have been claiming for months that GPRS service has been successfully rolled out and is up and running internationally.


http://www.t-mobile.com/international/coverageInternet.asp

[NJBlackBerry]

The 5820 (the non North American version of the 5810) works perfectly in the UK and Western Europe; haven't tried it any other places. GPRS works - the GPRS roaming is not set up properly... But they did claim it WAS working before I bought the 6710s. I think they are close..

[dbean]

Guys,

The deal is that T-Mobile has not officially launched international data coverage just yet for the 6710. When they do the first round will include 10 countries. In some countries it is working now, in others not so it is a real hit or miss situation because they have to rely on the other providers GPRS deployment. I would wait for the formal announcement before spreading the word to your end users because even T-Mobile is not certain if it works in some areas.

[headtailgrep]

Yes.. a user of mine also could not get any GPRS data service in uk, sweden, germany, and france. This was in early december..

we have a canadian (rogers) unit.

[NJBlackBerry]

According to a rep. from O2 (the old BT CellNet), there is a GPRS networking issue between North American 1900 MHz networks and 900 MHz European networks. Motorola is developing a fix which should go into test next week. He guesses that GPRS roaming will be available at the end of January.

[DIG]

Works in many countries in Europe: I'm based in the UK, and can say from personal experience that it works in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Moscow.

However, my Blackberry won't automatically pick up a GPRS network (except in the UK). It picks up whichever GSM network is strongest. You have to go into Network and manually select and register with a network that you know offers GPRS: for example it's Telia in Sweden. This is a pain if you've forgotten which one works as you have to try each one out.

I don't know which model of Blackberry I have - it just says Model R900/1800 on the back. edit Aha, it's a 5820

[NJBlackBerry]

O2 posts a complete listing of which contries are up and running on GPRS (FOR THE 5820 ONLY) and which countries are in test. Unfortunately you need an account to get to their BlackBerry support web site. At this point there is no roaming from North American BlackBerrys to locations outside of North American (i.e., not on 1900 MHz GSM/GPRS).

[mdfe]

It depends on what carrier you're with. AT&T has GPRS agreements with the UK, Hong Kong, Finland, & Canada. Our national rep assures me they will being signing agreements with many more countries in the next 4-5 months.

[NJBlackBerry]

And T-Mobile is advertising GPRS international roaming now. I can't deal with reassurances from AT&T and T-Mobile. I have deployed 6710s and need GPRS roaming now.

[Sp!ke]

Let me clear up a few things here.

The blackberry I use in the UK works fine almost all over Europe using GPRS............. but Europe use a different frequency than the US. US use 1900 EU uses 1800. In areas where there is no GPRS signal (1800), I can pick up a GSM signal but I am told the Blackberry does not work on GSM.

My advice is that you will never get *proper* European cover using the 900 Mhz frequency. The only answer is to wait untill RIMM bring out a Tri band Handset.

[NJBlackBerry]

GSM is a voice network. GPRS is a data network which rides over the GSM network. There are three frequencies in use: 900 and 1800 MHz in the UK, Europe, Asia and Africa, and 1900 MHz, in the US, Canada and a few Latin American countries.

The RIM 5810 runs on 1900 MHz only. So it is US only. The RIM 5820 runs on 900 and 1800 MHz networks.

The RIM 6710 runs on 1900 MHz for North American and 900 MHz for UK and Asia. BUT THE ROAMING DOESN'T WORK.

The RIM 6720 runs on 900 and 1800 MHz networks. So it can't roam to North American.

A tri band unit will be nice, but since they don't even have dual band roaming working now, it won't do much good.

[Jdempsey]

DIG is correct I recommend following Dig's advice. I also know that performing a "power cycle" helps (turn the device off then back on) sounds silly but it works to get GPRS to work sometimes.

[NJBlackBerry]

Make sure you have the latest versions of the software. For T-Mobile devices (both the 5810 and 6710) the latest version is 150. Contact your T-Mobile rep. for the latest version. That eliminates lots of the gprs/GPRS issues. A 6710 STILL won't work outside of North America. No matter how many times you reset it or shut the radio off and on.

[mdfe]

NJ-Blackberry - The AT&T 6710 cell phone roams internationally, GPRS is limited to Canada, Finland, UK, and Hong Kong

[NJBlackBerry]

Good news; unfortunately for me, my boss is sitting in London with a partially functional 6710 (voice works)...

[headtailgrep]

NJB: I'm a Rogers At&t customer in Canada and i've gone through hoops to try to get GPRS working in europe.

I've been told by rim support that T-mobile customers have been sucecssful in european roaming with their 6710's.

T-mobile is an 1800 mhz network thus 6710's won't browse to it, however t-mobile USA must have agreements in place with network partners in europe to make this work.. i do not know which ones..

I sent my boss over to the UK with a 6710 and no matter what we did (using a Rogers sim) we didn't get ANY data service.

This week my boss goes again, and this time we have an unlocked blackberry and will try to get GPRS service from a provider in the UK (either Vodaphone or O2 since the others are incompatible)

However, talking to Rim support again they mentioned that unless an agreement is in place, you won't get access to email since the blackberry web client needs to be able to contact the european network.. and it currently does not

but, if We get GPRS working i expect at least web browsing and other IP based functionality to work.

We will see what happens I guess... have you determined which networks in the UK (or elsewhere) have GPRS service for locals?

[NJBlackBerry]

I've had a bunch of the 5820s deployed in the UK for several months now. They work beautifully. We've done seamless browsing through most of Western Europe; haven't tried much in the Far East. The 5820s were sold by O2 and run on 900/1800 MHz GSM/GPRS. They work like a champ. I haven't tried the 6720s yet.

I haven't done much 6710 roaming testing yet; I am concentrating on the UK for now. So far, T-Mobile is pointing at O2, and O2 admits the problem is theirs....

[headtailgrep]

what about vodaphone?

the 6710 is only compatible on o2 and vodaphone.. t-mobile and orange are 1800 mhz only , and won't work on 6710.

[NJBlackBerry]

A good question. I know that T-Mobile has a ton of GSM roaming agreements; I'll have to ask about the GPRS agreements. So far, they've always mentioned O2. My 5820s were from O2. No one else sold them (at least at that time). My UK infrastructure cohorts would have preferred Vodaphone.

[mysapman]

I am currently using the 6710 in Germany. I had some problems with GPRS working in some area of Munich where I live. I contacted T-Mobile and they applied a patch to the network and everything was working fine.

Do you have a GPRS signal?

Do you have a GMS signal?
This will not give you the access you need for data. It will allow you to make calls.


I also talked with Blackberry in Europe and they are adding additional providers in the coming months, like D2 Vodfone and others in Europe. This will help with coverage.

Enjoy! I love mine. I travel a lot between Germany and the US and it is working great!

[NJBlackBerry]

Great GSM signal; voice works fine. No GPRS - it only will go to gprs. It can't obtain an IP address, so there are no data services available. Patch is in the hands of O2. Unfortunately T-Mobiles UK network is on the 1800 MHz frequency and wont work on the 6710 (900/1900 only).

Glad it's working! There is hope.

[headtailgrep]

who is your primary provider mysapman?

We definately didn't get our user roaming GPRS anywhere in Europe on a Rogers sim card..

Having that said, if your provider is not Rogers, who is it? Do they claim you can roam to europe with that device? Do they have GPRS contracts in place with said providers?

and what network are you using in Germany? I could use a clue the next time my users go over there.. I certainly got none from Rogers, or even Rim.

[mdfe]

AT&T's 6710 now has GPRS roaming agreements with Austria,China,Canada,Denmark,Finland,Hong Kong,Norway,Sweden, and the UK

[headtailgrep]

it's too bad Rogers at&t and the US at&t don't share the same agreements..

[mknight]

I also have a 6710 on T-mobile and a boss who was expecting it to work on a lengthy trip over the past few weeks.

So after reading this thread, and dealing with his problems of using it around Europe, I can draw only one conclusion, the 6710 doesn't work anywhere outside of the US on GPRS. The GSM service does seem to work OK for voice. For SMS, it only gets roughly 25% of the messages it is sent, and just as rarely is able to send any.

I would love to hear other's experiences, first or second hand, clearly the carriers are not the place to look for information. I can't tell you how many times I had to talk to T-mobile, or how many times I had to be escalated to the wireless data group, or the "group that deals with the blackberries" each time explaining again. So many of them said it would work, only to be given conflicting info.

So has anyone gotten a 6710 to work for GPRS in Europe? If so where, what is your carrier, and on what network over there was it seen?

[dbean]

We have had confirmed reports from our US customers that T-Mobile International roaming for GSM/GPRS is working just fine in: Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland and Spain. The UK is scheduled to be "lit up" in the very near term with roaming on O2's network.

In our experience the 6710 has been a virtually flawless device with customer satisfaction in the very high 9x%!

[mdfe]

One of my earlier posts I referred to AT&T's 6710 gprs coverage. In reality our 1st user to go to the UK was not able to get his email. It took some extensive efforts on AT&T's part, working with mmO2 to get that resolved. Several other 6710 users say they are now getting email in the UK. The only other country one of our AT&T 6710 users was in was Italy and he said he had no problems with email there.

[mastertrc]

Just got back from a trip to Germany and UK. Have the 6710 with ATT....no dice in Germany on gprs..I was in southern Germany...Frankfurt, Stuttgart and East of there..
good news..GPRS worked very well all over the UK...London heathrow..and up the A1 to Lincoln...had to turn the device on an off.sometimes to get into GPRS...but it seemed to work very nicely.
Now I hope they get the international roaming agreements setup for the continent..

[NJBlackBerry]

O2 is planning to modify their network on Thursday to accept trafic from the T-Mobile network, and allow GPRS roaming in the UK with a 6710. Wait and see!