Hi all

We have a user with a BB 8800, supplied by Vodafone in the UK. He is now based in Paris, and clearly we want to save roaming costs.

We want to switch him to SFR. However, our UK-based service provider says that it's not possible to use a UK Blackberry with a non-UK SIM. Apparently it's not enough to simply 'unlock' the device for the foreign network.

I'm told the only way we can get the user onto SFR is to provide him with a French-sourced device. We don't really want to do that, not least because it'll be an AZERTY keyboard!

Our service provider can't provide a 'technical' reason why we can't simply use an SFR SIM in his existing device - they merely say it's not possible.

Clearly, I need to explain this in more detail to my 'powers that be'. So, if anyone can help me by explaining why this is a problem - or, even better, telling me our service provider is mistaken (wouldn't be the first time, believe me) - then I look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks in advance!

(Also posted at blackberryforums.co.uk)

Wirelessly posted

Technically speaking he could unlock the device and use a french sim. If however you are using a blackberry internet service package with Vodafone then this won't work with the french sim & a french. (SFR) BB tariff would have to be purchased and the email account set up through that. The BB data is tied to the sim card.

If you are using blackberry enterprise service this may be different so hopefully someone who is familiar with BES will come along with advice.

Hi. Sorry, I should have said ...

We're on BES.

I contacted RIM about similar issue and this is a part of the e-mail i got from them:

"Because the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is carrier agnostic, it should not matter who the carrier is for your device(s). Thus, should you be able to acquire the BES, it should work with whoever your carrier is."


Hope this helps

P.S this is my 100th post :

Hi. Thanks for the advice.