I am currently a T-mobile customer (no longer locked into a contract) using a Blackberry 6710 over a BES. I am getting a Cingular 8700 because I attended the launch. I would like to play with the 8700 and evaluate Cingular coverage in my area before even considering changing plans. Cingular coverage in my area in the past has been poor. If it still poor I will just have my 8700 unlocked through Bongo and use it on T-mobile's network. If the coverage now is great I'll consider switching to Cingular because of the Edge coverage. My T-mobile phone and data rates are certainly better than Cingular's, however, so I want to make sure of coverage before I change anything.

My questions:
1) Will I be able to use Cingular GoPhone sims in my new Blackberry 8700, or other Cingular prepaid sims for phone coverage during my evaluation period?
2) If I am using one of these prepaid sims, will I still be able to connect to my BES and change the active device from my 6710 to my 8700 so that I can also check out email functionality?

Thanks.

You should be able to use your blackberry on pre paid but only for voice and sms. You wouldn't be able to use it for email and what not. You would need a blackberry data pack for that.

Ah, good point. Forgot about that. I don't assume that you can get a Blackberry data plan added onto a prepaid phone plan, can you?
Thanks.

I in in Canada and here on pre paid you cannot. I am assuming it's the same for the U.S. also.

Couple more questions:
1. Does the launch 8700 come with a Cingular sim card?
2. If it does, can I just call Cingular and prepay some minutes to it rather than opening up a contract with them?
3. If the launch 8700 does not come with sim card, should I just go to eBay and buy a $7.99 64K Cingular sim card and then call Cingular to add prepaid minutes to it?
Thanks.

I use a blackberry 7290 with Cingular prepaid (Gophone pick your plan) and the voice and SMS work fine, I am also waiting to order a 8700c from amazon in a few days, the prepaid SIM should work with the 8700c just fine, just no blackberry connect. I dont know about adding prepaid minutes to a SIM you recieve with the 8700c, since i had my prepaid account for some time before I got the 7290

How about this:

Go to your closest cingular store, and sign up for a no contract 49.99 UNL BB Data Only plan as you are supplying your own equipment. You could then compare coverage on your 6710 and the 8700 and see which one gets the best signal. WHile on this plan you could email but have to pay extra per voice minute... OR option 2 is same as above only make it a 39.99 no contract 450 anytime plan with UNL N&W but no M2M and then add the 44.99 BB UNL Plan as a feature... again no contract but allows you to test the network out with no obligation and if you cancel before 3 days are up you are not even responsible for activation charges.

The reason I reccomend the above is that the Prepaid Pay as you Go and Pick Your Plan network is completely different coverage than the Post Paid Network. Just go online to Cingular.com and compare the coverage maps.

i recently got an 8700 and plugged in the sim card, but there is no media net/browser icon. what to do?

which version of 8700 did you get? I would guess Cingular because you mentioned about "media net"?

what carrier's sim card did you plug in?

may be a bit more info could help.

I know some companies, like Suncom, allow you have a month-to-month contract for voice and/or data. Perhaps there's a regional carrier around you that might provide something like that for just your data?

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i apologize for providing too liitle information. it's the 8700c by cingular and it's a cingular sim card as well.

i know it's probably better to just get a contract, but i don't like to be locked into to something, not knowin what could happen, hence the reason i'm using the prepaid (gophone) option.

again, i know they don't sell blackberries with these plans for a reason. but are the two so incompatable that one cannot get/access ANY (prepaid) data on the device?

may be it is just the way Cingular setup for the prepaid customer which they would not add the data plan on it. :(

i dont know if this will help you but on ebay there is this sim card that uyou put in your phone that houses two sims i was thinking you could keep your prepaid for voice and get just the black berry data thing and you would be less tied down

You suck at the Internet. Why are you contributing to a thread that is over a year old?

I JUST BOUGHT A BLACKBERRY 6710 (TMOBILE) NOW I DONNOT WANT A CONTRACT IS IT POSSIBLE IF I CAN PUT IT PREPAID ?? SOMEBODY HELP ME OUT ?????? I WANT TO PUT IT PREPAID WITH A TMOBILE SIM CARD

You need a BB dataplan for MMS. And stop shouting. You might get a better response if you don't act like a child!

i use my tmoible to go and it works fine with call and sms but no data

Act like a child because his choice in font is large and blue? What a stupid response.

Also I have a 8700c with cingular on the gophone account. I have the unlimited data on my account and unlimited text. My friend has the exact same phone with cingular with an actual blackberry plan. We pay exactly the same down to the penny. The only difference is that I cannot send direct emails out and I cannot use the blackberry browser. So I use the opera mini browser which is free and much better. Since yahoo is my mail client of choice, I use the yahoo go client on my phone which allows me to send and recieve email from my phone. It looks really nice too.

Hey Lightingbird, what type of prepaid account you have? I try calling ATT and they said they did not have a unlimited data plan for prepaid. Is it a different plan or is it the MediaNet?

I have a 8700r with a 'pay as you go' plan and 1M of MediaNet. I downloaded and installed the opera browser, setup the APN and still would not connect. I search and tried everything possible, I know I am missing something little.