blackberry hand helds

rickymartin

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Aug 3, 2004
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Has anyone had any experience using these in the puerto plata area? Thanks for any info. I did a seach and ycouldnt find anything
 

Escott

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Jan 14, 2002
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Hi Ricky,

I haven't seen these new phones in the DR yet. They will be as good as the provider it is made for. Do you know if it is CDMA or GSM? With that info we can tell you about the carrier and how good or bad they are along with your choices.
 

p2020

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May 28, 2004
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RIM blackberry not yet available in DR

Escott said:
Hi Ricky,

I haven't seen these new phones in the DR yet. They will be as good as the provider it is made for. Do you know if it is CDMA or GSM? With that info we can tell you about the carrier and how good or bad they are along with your choices.

I recently spoke with RIM, the makers of the Blackberry because I wanted to see if I could do business with them and the informed me that they were already in talks with some of the Dominian carriers. The reason why you cannot just bring a Blackberry from abroad and activate it for email use is because it requires some back-end systems on the carrier side.

The Blackberry comes in both GSM and cdma technologies and if the person that I talked to was telling me the truth they will be available by year-end.
 

TEHAMA

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Feb 3, 2004
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It works in SDQ. I have not seen any in stores. I bought mine stateside through TMobile and its works like a charm. There is a $15.00 per megabyte(?) charge for my use in the DR. However, in one month of checking my non-spam emails and sending emails as usual only came to $7US
TEHAMA
 

ricktoronto

Grande Pollo en Boca Chica
Jan 9, 2002
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Escott said:
Hi Ricky,

I haven't seen these new phones in the DR yet. They will be as good as the provider it is made for. Do you know if it is CDMA or GSM? With that info we can tell you about the carrier and how good or bad they are along with your choices.

It is GSM for the voice part (mine is a cell, too) and GPRS (general packet radio service) and mine works as far as Miami , gets an Orange GSM lock on but no GPRS probably since nobody uses it in the DR yet. Well looking at the above I guess it is whatever T Mobile uses but I pay 15 cents per 150K of roaming in MIA or DFW etc, so fifteen bucks a megabyte is robbery.
 

rickymartin

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Aug 3, 2004
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blackberry

ricktoronto said:
It is GSM for the voice part (mine is a cell, too) and GPRS (general packet radio service) and mine works as far as Miami , gets an Orange GSM lock on but no GPRS probably since nobody uses it in the DR yet. Well looking at the above I guess it is whatever T Mobile uses but I pay 15 cents per 150K of roaming in MIA or DFW etc, so fifteen bucks a megabyte is robbery.
Thanks Rick. Do you use a Canadian wireless cell service ie Telus for both voice and emails when you are in the Dr?
 

TEHAMA

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Feb 3, 2004
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Dont quote me on Megabyte

RickToronto:
I am not computer savy at all! Could have been 100 megabyte, kilo byte, gigabyte...I dont know. What I know is it came to $7.00 and I did not alter my normal email activities.
TEHAMA
 

leromero

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May 30, 2004
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I like mine ...

I use a Blackberry all day long here in Georgia for work and I could not be without it. If I can use the same one in the DR I would probably take mine with me when on vacation there. My customers know that they can contact me through email faster than by cell phone.
 

cobraboy

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Jul 24, 2004
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Whenever I hold my blackberries, they get all squishy...

:laugh:
 

Escott

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Jan 14, 2002
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ricktoronto said:
It is GSM for the voice part (mine is a cell, too) and GPRS (general packet radio service) and mine works as far as Miami , gets an Orange GSM lock on but no GPRS probably since nobody uses it in the DR yet. Well looking at the above I guess it is whatever T Mobile uses but I pay 15 cents per 150K of roaming in MIA or DFW etc, so fifteen bucks a megabyte is robbery.
Then the only carrier that can be used in the DR is Orange which is hit or miss. Codetel/verizon is the best coverage.

Scott
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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I use the Hewlet Packard Pocket PC 3800 series here in SDQ and it works well. As with cell phones, once you hit the countryside the reception comes and go, but within SDQ metropolitan area it works like a pro.

I also use my Pocket PC as a cell phone since I have a software that enables me to use it as such. I also use it to check my emails on the go, send instant messages, research info on something in the net on the spot (example: if I'm in Plaza Lama and I want something and there is a variety, I simply search it up on the net right there so that I can make a good decision, etc.).

I really don't know how I can survive without this incredible piece of technology. Did I mention that I can also create and transfer Excel spreadsheets and Word documents onto my desktop PC? Its a great piece of technology to have.
 

p2020

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May 28, 2004
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Two versions of blackberry exist

Escott said:
Then the only carrier that can be used in the DR is Orange which is hit or miss. Codetel/verizon is the best coverage.

Scott

There is a GSM and a CDMA version of the device (and even an iDEN version for Nexel in the US).

As someone wrote before you might be able to use it for browsing and checking webmail but the most popular push application for email is not going to work unless the carrier has the backend systems, which as far as I understand they don't. Please correct me if I am wrong on this last part.
 

rickymartin

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Aug 3, 2004
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local carrier nor important

p2020 said:
There is a GSM and a CDMA version of the device (and even an iDEN version for Nexel in the US).

As someone wrote before you might be able to use it for browsing and checking webmail but the most popular push application for email is not going to work unless the carrier has the backend systems, which as far as I understand they don't. Please correct me if I am wrong on this last part.

If you get service from your us or canadian cell phonecompany in the dr then the blackberry will work while down there I think .This is what I was checking before I bought one for there for my emails from customers etc
 

ricktoronto

Grande Pollo en Boca Chica
Jan 9, 2002
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No.

rickymartin said:
Thanks Rick. Do you use a Canadian wireless cell service ie Telus for both voice and emails when you are in the Dr?

No, using a non Dominican cell to roam is a waste of a lot of money. Buy a new phone at Orange and use the pay as you go cards. A decent phone can be had for US$30 or so and the cards start at RD$100. Even when the cards in exhausted you can receive calls. I call long distance for more than 2 or 3 minutes from a calling shop, like Codetel or Turitel etc.

And as I said the Blackberry doesn't work in the DR for e-mail. However internet cafes are everywhere for that.
 

ricktoronto

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Jan 9, 2002
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TEHAMA said:
RickToronto:
I am not computer savy at all! Could have been 100 megabyte, kilo byte, gigabyte...I dont know. What I know is it came to $7.00 and I did not alter my normal email activities.
TEHAMA

I understand. I use the same volume in the USA when I roam there and I pay at most 50 cents a month extra if I have two trips, so $7.00 is still a rip job.
 

TEHAMA

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Feb 3, 2004
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Interesting. I travel alot for business stateside and dont ever recall a roaming charge increase. I should specify that I have 7230 (the blue phone) but I rarely make a call using it. I was told the additional charge was for international agreements TMobile had with other carriers.
TEHAMA
 

Maggie6872

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Jul 18, 2005
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Current Blackberry Service

HI, Does any one have any details on Blackberry service around Puerto Plata or Sosua/Cabarete?

I need to know what company offers locally, where I can get service set up at (address, telephone #, etc of those companies). I called Verizon Dominicana and they do not offer the Blackberry and seemed to think that I was a fruit :) for asking about local service. The company I work for in the US wants me to set up service locally in DR.

I will be visiting Aug 12 for a few days and need to get this set up! Any info before hand would be much appreciated, as I am house hunting.

Thanks for your help,
Margaret
(moving to DR in Oct!)
 

TimInDR

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Jun 4, 2005
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ricktoronto said:
It is GSM for the voice part (mine is a cell, too) and GPRS (general packet radio service) and mine works as far as Miami , gets an Orange GSM lock on but no GPRS probably since nobody uses it in the DR yet. Well looking at the above I guess it is whatever T Mobile uses but I pay 15 cents per 150K of roaming in MIA or DFW etc, so fifteen bucks a megabyte is robbery.

Orange has GPRS service. I tested it for 2 weeks as a mobile high-speed option. Overall it sucked. In general... it sucked. And that was before Orange decided to upgrade their system and goof up their whole net.
 

jrf

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Jan 9, 2005
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Service

My Blackberry worked great for text messages to and from Canada but could not be "unlocked" at least not by the Orange dealer in Sosua.
Since it uses the Sim card you will need to be on the Orange service.