Hey guys,

I'm fairly new to the BlackBerry scene so if you could help me out, that'd be great. I recently got my hands on an old Curve 8130 (Rogers) from a buddy of mine. Its an upgrade from the crappy phone I have now, so I'm trying to find a plan for it. As far as I can tell, the BB works perfectly fine. My buddy used a Pay-As-You Go plan on it and im looking to do something similar.

I stumbled upon Virgin Canada's prepaid plans. I'm aiming for roughly $25 a month for my plan (10 cents a minute for $10 a month). Would the airtime be included in this? Also, my problem is I can't decide on which addons I need. It's between 100 texts, Unlimited Email and Unlimited Browsing. Can I just use the web browsing to check my emails (hotmail, gmail, etc) instead of getting the Unlimited Email addon?

Should I continue down this path or start looking at other options?

Also, does anybody know if Virgin Canada and Koodo are using SIM cards? If their parent companies are moving over from CDMA, shouldnt they be moving too?

Be very careful with a Blackberry without a data plan. Limited plans can cause high bills very quicly. I attempted to check the cost of blackberry plans but they offer zero information.

Apparently their move from cdma means that their phones are sim card capable, but only use sims for roaming. That's what I gathered from the carrier specific issue forum on this site.

I would speak to Virgin yourself and see what they are able to do and to get more info on their plans. Koodoo doesn't offer data services from my understanding.

Browsing should give you access to email, most plans out there are either email only, or data inclusive, the data one allowing you to use it all + email.

Again, Virgin would be the best people to speak to first off. Koodoo has too many problems from what I hear anyways, I've called their customer service on behalf of customers who have switched over and am appalled at how they run their company.

"Using SIM cards" doesn't necessarily mean GSM. Verizon's hybrid devices have SIM slots for roaming.

Looking at Virgin Canada's current BB offerings: 8130, 8230, 8330 they're clearly still CDMA.

It's my understanding that carriers in Canada dont have phones like that, so in our case, using SIM cards does mean GSM. Sorry, should have been more clear.

@Noodle22, I've actually been really satisfied with Koodo. I've been with them for just under a year.

Are there any options that i'm not looking at here. Its just, I have a blackberry and theres no sense in using it for just voice.

And sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

In Canada, Rogers has gsm phones, Bell and Telus are not gsm, they have a different type of network, and Telus owns koodoo. The sim slots from my understanding are only so they can roam, they are not gsm networks.

This is not completely true. Telus and Bell have begun overlaying their CDMA networks with HSPA, which is the 3.75G variety of GSM. Thus, some of their phones are actually GSM.

Ahh, sorry about that. I don't know personally because they are not my carriers, just taking from what I've seen in the carrier issue thread where others were saying the sim was only used for roaming.

Yes. Solo and Virgin are owned by Bell and Rogers owns Fido. You would think that if Bell and Telus are switching over to HDSPA, then the smaller companies that they own would be switching too.

Then theres Wind Mobile. Anybody have any clue on when they're launching?

Any day now, since the CRTC overturned the ruling on them, they are now allowed to operate. I started a thread about it in the carrier specific forum hoping more will talk about it.

Anybody have any recommendations for cheap blackberry plans with web browsing???

Apparently I can't use my phone with Telus prepaid, which sucks, because it would have been quite affordable.