Hey Guyz,
I recently got my hands on a blackberry 8700. Now its a german model (with VODAFONE printed on the front and a qwuertzu keyboard) .

I have a subscription with MOBISTAR in Belgium and on my sim both voice and GPRS are activated. (i Dont have any rim or rem services on my card).

The problem is : I cant get the blackberry online. It just reads " DATA CONNECTION REFUSED " and i see it tries to connect to EDGE (while I have GPRS)

I thought the phone was locked : but thats not the case , people can call me , and i can call people. Its just the bloody GPRS that won"t get started up.

I've gotten a how to from mobistar to adjust my "browser" settings on my blackberry , but I don"t even have a browser icon (probably because its not connected to gprs).

They have also given me the APN settings for me to fill in. But also : No result.

The blackberry will get text messages , but is unable to send them (i have checked the correct sms service number).

Been calling first second and even third line support at mobistar (and even at rim) but to no avail. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer.

My question is ? What am i doing wrong , am i forgetting to set settings ? Is the phone locked ? Am i stupid or is it just the people at mobistar.

I desperately emplore your help.

it sounds to me like the settings on your provider (mobistar) are not set properly for a data connection nor a blackberry internet service. I don't know how things work exactly with Mobistar or in Belgium so someone from there will have to answer as far as that goes.

the data connection refused and the lack of a browser both indicate that the device is not configured for a data connection, when it is properly set up, the browser will appear after the handheld is registered on the wireless network. the APN settings will apply after you get your internet/data plan activated on your account.

I assume that you are going to want a Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) account so you need to set that up before you are able to use the data features. I found this website that may help you: Mobistar

Also, as far as the text messaging, that is something that you may need to discuss with Mobistar as it sounds like it is something on their end that may be set incorrectly.

again, this is all how it works in the US, but I would imagine it is not too dissimilar where you are.. I would give Mobistar a call and make sure everything is set for BIS on their end..

Hope this helps!

Thanx a million for your help I thought as much , cause when I put my sim card (that is in my blackberry right now) in my TREO it doesn't access GPRS either , it just connects and disconnects right away. So there might be an account problem.

Secondly i have one more question. Can't I just set my blackberry to retrieve POP mail from my Pop inbox (so just using GPRS , a pop client and no RIM or REM ? Or is this impossible.)
Cause at mobistar , some say you can , others say you cant...

Confusing !

not quite sure what RIM or REM are.. we don't have those in the US to my knowledge..

but I do know that you can not check your email without a data plan..

Without a BlackBerry Data plan all you have are voice and SMS text. Nothing more. No POP3; no GPRS data - nothing.

That was my next question.

half the people at mobistar say i SHOULD be able to do GPRS WITHOUT having an extra blackberry plan (my standard GPRS plan would do it)

the OTHER half say that i CANT do it.


But even when i would try to get a blackberry plan, i need to register my pin and imei number with blackberry (or on blackberry.mobistar.be) but when i do that it says " an account allready exists for this device" Seems this was done by the previous owner. I called up vodafone and they say they have cleared the account so i can register the blackberry , but it does not seem to work. Any thoughts on what I can do ?

Bottom line is if you don't have a data plan you are not getting online. Here in the US we pay a seperate charge for voice and data. A typical bb plan is 1350 voice minutes and a blackberry unlimited data plan. I pay T-Mobile around 80-125 USD a month.

Mobistar
Mobistar

Your best solution is to verify you have a Blackberry data plan. If your sim card is giving you issues then request a new sim card. This is the only way.