Shouldn't Blackberry's Pure GSM Phones be the Real "World Edition"?
GSM carriers in North America have always held an edge for trans-oceanic-bound North America-based travelers because their phones will also work in Europe and Asia. The only caveat for Europeans visiting North America was that they needed to have phones that support the 850 MHz band to obtain the most complete coverage while in North America.
So when Verizon and Sprint yesterday introduced a new Blackberry 8830 that provides CDMA support in North America and GSM support elsewhere, why does it get the name "World Edition" or why does Verizon have the right to call their branded version a "Global Blackberry"?
Seems like the "prior rights" for these names should belong to the pure quad-band GSM Blacbkerries, such as the Pearl (8100), 8700 and 8800 supported by Rogers, AT&T (Cingular) and T-Mobile in North America. My 8700 was pretty good at automatically announcing, via a Rogers service SMS message, that I had arrived in the U.S., Germany, Belgium, France and the U.K. last month.
A couple of comments:
- The Blackberry 8830 only supports the non-North American 900 and 1800 MHz bands; thus, they will not work on North American GSM carriers' networks
- The Blackberry 8830 is a good announcement for Bell Canada and at least counters one concern that I had in discussing Bell Canada's dilemma last week. And they don't have to do a North American GSM overlay to accomplish global reach for their customers; strike off one cost for whoever becomes their new owners..
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Well, I think a true "world phone" comes into play when it's a phone that works in the US, Europe (and surrounding areas) and Japan. Japan is always the missing link with "World Phones". We have a lot of executives at our company that go to Japan, and it's our (IT Department) biggest complaint.
I'm actually meeting with our Verizon rep next week to talk to them about this new phone. But in terms of other GSM carriers, Cingular won't be releasing a Blackberry that's a "World Phone" until Q4. However, there is a RIM model, the 8707 that you can get right now as a World Phone. If you are a Vodaphone customer, the 8707v works anywhere in the world. If you are not, you can get an 8707g (which is the ONLY Blackberry - so I'm told - you can buy directly from RIM) which is the same as a 8707v but not tied to a carrier.
So if you have T-Mobile or Cingular, and you need a phone that works "Worldwide", the 8707g is the Blackberry you need (pricing is about $600).
Posted by: Tom Yarrish | April 26, 2007 07:59 PM
As I wrote in my post How to make expensive calls on your BlackBerry? their many ways to actually use this phone internationally, even with Verizon who has chosen to lock the phone (as opposed to Sprint) which will provide it unlocked. More at link.
Posted by: Moshe Maeir | April 28, 2007 10:05 AM
The GSM Blackberry phones work in the entire world except in Japan and Korea, which only support 3G and CDMA. With CDMA present, the Blackberry WE should solve that issue... I think.
Posted by: Justin | February 4, 2008 01:33 PM