I work in southeast Asia (Jakarta, Indonesia specifically), about half of the time. There are at least two companies there who provide blackberry accounts. I know this because my blackberry (on t-mobile account) roams there just fine, both voice and data.

Here is my question. I am considering getting an account in Indonesia for my blackberry (voice and data) so that I can use my BB there and have a local number (I do not want to carry two telephones around). The cost of having two accounts is not a factor because my company would pick up the cost of the second account. Does anyone know if this would work and, if so, what the considerations/complications are? I am basically in Jakarta for a month followed by a month or so at home, repeated many times.

Thanks to anybody who can shed light on this.

Not many complications, as long as you are on a BES - I do not know if it would work with BIS. Just make sure that the SIM card in Jakarta is provisioned for BlackBerry service. As soon as you swap in the Jakarta SIM card, you should be able to send/receive emails again.

Actually, I am on BIS. But I don't see why that wouldn't also work. I guess that all the localized settings are pushed to the blackberry when it registers on the new network, right?

I think the problem you may run into is that your PIN will be set/assigned on one carrier, and you would have to have your PIN released everytime you wanted to switch carriers.

Hmmm. I have an older blackberry that I no longer use. I wonder if I could just transfer the T-Mobile BIS account that that phone's PIN and IMEI to free up the PIN and IMEI of the new phone for my other country's service? It seems like I would be able to do that myself through online BIS services. Then I would reverse the process when I came back to the U.S. Any reason why that wouldn't work?

The PIN/IMEI is attached to the carrier. You wouldn't be able to receive email from both carriers on the same phone. Once you register the device for the first time, it is attached to that carrier and you would have to call them to get it released. It has nothing to do with switching devices in BIS. That is only if you are switching devices on the same carrier.

From the first post it sounds like cost is not a factor, so I'd say the easiest thing is to just get the company to buy a second BB that you will use solely in that country. You can use Desktop Manager to keep the two BB sync'd.

Durn, I was hoping to avoid that if possible. But thanks for the info. Better than going through the whole rigamarole with one BB just to find out that it won't work on two carrier's systems.