HELP!! I'm gettin real, real worried about my Blackberry 7290 and I haven't had it for five hours yet.

And yet our entire time together has been spent trying to figure out how to get the damn thing to connect to the internet.

More usefully, I'm trying to connect it to my at home 802.11b wireless network. I was told by the salesperson that doing this would be easier than connecting my laptop to it. What a load of crap that was.

I have no idea where to start and there seems to be extraordinarily limited information on this on the internet. Or I haven't learned where to find it yet.

I bought for really only one reason: It'd allow me to Phone/Email/Browse/AIM on one device. Since my home and school both have 802.11 WANs, it made perfect sense. I spend 99% of my time either on campus where every building has very high signal strength or at home, which is too small to have less.

What do I have to do??

Thanks,

Hammilton

PS- This may be in the wrong forum, I couldn't find one more appropriate either, though... I dunno

The 7290 does not support 802.11.

I guess you bought it ASSUMING it did WiFi. Which it doesn't. No BlackBerrys, with the exception of the 7270, which is ONLY WiFi, use 802.11.

OMFG. I Assumed he knew what he was talking about. Huh... I'm really pissed now. I wonder if I can exchange it. or something.

I assume that without paying for their service I will have to exchange my phone, huh?

If I purchase T-Mobile web for 5.99 on my blackberry will that solve this problem?

No. That will do nothing.

Okay.

Then I'm stuck. I was looking at the directions to allow access to internet and email via TCP and entering the ARP. I understand the concept of what I need to do, but on this foreign thing I don't know what to do and what the costs will be or if it'll even work. Any help would be much appreciated.

Do you have a BlackBerry Data Plan? Without a BlackBerry Data Plan all you will have is voice and SMS. What are you trying to do?

I was talking about what I was reading here. I really have no idea what I'm doing besides what I read here. It looks like I might as well just send it back.

Perhaps that would be best.

wow. thanks for all your help

Look, you got a BlackBerry. You don't know what you want to do with it, but you want to use Wifi. Which you can't. You don't know if you have a BlackBerry Data Plan. Which is normally a pretty easy question.

Where did you get this BB?

No, no data plan outside of the tmobileweb on it. wifi parts understood. now, i'll say it again, understanding that wifi isn't an option, what services much I purchase to do what is described in the link.

OK, and I'll say it again - you must have a BlackBerry Data Plan in order to get your e-mail and use the web. To repeat (for the third time in this thread) you must have a BlackBerry Data Plan. TMobileWeb does nothing for a BlackBerry.

Please call T-Mobile and have the BlackBerry Data Plan - $19.99/month - added to your account. Then you can get your e-mail and browse the Internet.

that's one and two, not two and three. play fair

C'mon... This is a post towards the top...