Hello all,

I'm new to the forum and new to Blackberry's in general. I swap phones very often (every couple of months) had never tried a BB. I purchased a factory unlocked and unbranded Bold last week. I use a hosted exchange server which offers a BES option which I have activated. Up until now, I have used AT&T's MediaNet unlimited package which has worked just fine with all of my phones (WinMo & Android). I've been able to browse the web, and more importantly, setup my exchange server connection for e-mail, contacts, calendar. I've attempted to go through the BES activation process but it always ends in an error saying that a "a service connection is unavailable". I've done a bit of digging and everything I've found has a default answer of "you need a BES package from AT&T". I just wanted to triple check and see if there was any way to get BES setup on an unlocked BB on AT&T without upgrading to the BES plan? I apologize if this is a basic/redundant question, but this is my first BB and I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thanks!

You need BES for what you are trying to do. You need a blackberry data plan (either BES or BIS) to use any blackberry specific features such as push email, blackberry messgenger, etc.

If you are new to blackberrys, then you need to start out by reviewing the info on the FAQs to start with. Many of your questions will be answered there. Find the FAQs by looking at the menu bar at the top of each page on blackberrryforums.com. Click on BlackberryFAQ. Specifically, you may want to start with this one: What do I need a Data Plan for? - BlackBerryFAQ