I am considering getting an unlocked Curve 8320. I will not be subscribing to a data plan because I refuse to hand over any more money to Rogers, but I want to utilize the wifi feature. What are some of the problems I may encounter with doing this? Is it worth the money?

I bought an 8320 in Houston back in March and had it unlocked by GSM Phonesource (have used them 4 times now). I now use the $30/300mb BIS plan with Rogers (which I use when I am out of WiFi range). At home I use the WiFi exclusively for browsing and email. Also there are tons of open networks to hook onto everywhere. Have not yet used the UMA offered by Rogers. But plan to soon.

In order to get push email you need to subsrcibe to a BB plan. I would suggest the $15 email and internet plan.

I also have the 8320 and on Rogers. There are no issues with the WiFi. Keep in mind, there is no UMA support for the device on Rogers. The WiFi will give you Internet only. The only UMA support on Rogers are on Roger's branded devices like the 8120.

what exactly is UMA? what about accessing hotmail or gmail??

any other suggestions???

Im running an 8320 on Rogers and have no problems using wifi. I do recommend not using the default browser and downloading Opera. I would also recommend calling Rogers and having them disable data. This way you can be sure that you are not connecting thru Rogers. Only downside of turning off your data is that you can no longer send or receive MMS

I too would recommend the $15 unlimited email plan. Do it on a month to month basis. THere are several program that can "piggyback" off it.

Hey,
I had an unlocked 8320 back in December but I ended up giving it to my dad since we could not for the life of us get the WiFi to work on the phone. After getting an iPhone and hating it, he's upgrading to the bold and giving me back the original Curve so I definitely want to try and get it to work!!!!
Any ideas??
It would sometimes find networks but could never connect- the place next to Wifi under manage connections always remained as a yellow dash and never was a green check mark! thanks.

Just for more information-
I just read a bunch of the FAQs etc for connecting to WiFi and tried using my dads to connect him to WiFi. What I figured out was if I leave data turned ON, it will connect to my home network and has the green checkmark. When i click on service status it says that BIS and BES are connected to Wifi. So i figured that meant it was using wifi to connect to google when i tested so i assumed that if i turned data off it would still work. once i turned data off, i got the same old yellow dash and it would not properly connect which makes me think that it actually WAS using data the previous time.... and when i get this phone I'll be subscribing to only the 15$ personal email plan from Rogers so will ONLY want to use wifi to visit webpages.
any help would be very appreciated thanks a lot!!!

Yeah, it seems you need to have BlackBerry data turned on to connect through wi-fi. I've tested this before and found the same thing. However I don't think it actually uses the data, it just needs to be on. So if you have the $15 data plan you will *probably* be able to connect to wi-fi fine. Unfortunately, you won't know for sure until you try.

Ok, first off...

WiFi, you will be able to use it without the data plan fine, however you wil only be able to access the internet. That means no push email, no BB messenger, or anything like that.

WiFI + UMA... You will NOT be able to use UMA without a Rogers branded device. The UMA coding is a firmware issue and cannot be change, no if, ands, or buts about it. The only devices that can use UMA at this time with Rogers is the 8120 and 8820.

Data Plan... Like I said you will not be able to get push email or BB Messenger without it. Same with MMS, you need a BB data plan for anything like that. Essentially with WiFi off you will only be able to text message and make calls. That's it. With WiFi turned on, you will be able to text, make phone calls, and browse the internet(still no push email). If you want email on your device you will either need to navigate to the homepage of say gmail and log in that way or spring for either the $15 email plan, or the $30 data plan.

There is no way around it at all, none, nada, zip. Period end of story lol.

I realize the capabilities of Wifi without data... all I want to do is browse the web don't care about the push email etc.
the issue is that i just can't even connect to wifi.
my dad just picked up a bold (legit with rogers) and he is having the exact same problem with the wifi so now im even more confused.

You will never get a green check mark for wifi without a BB data plan. However, once you successfully connect to a wifi network you just need to make sure you're using the Hotspot (wifi) Browser. Go to Options >Advanced Options >Browser and set the default browser to Wifi or Hotspot Browser.

if you cant even connect to wifi then check the settings on your router, there may be something blocking the BBs from receiving anything...

i ordered an 8320 directly from rim. i love the wifi but if you really want all the real nitty gritty, you'll want the data plan. with the data plan, i can get all my emails pushed to me & at the same time, i can go on wifi to browse / msn while i'm sitting at home.