[kiknit]

Long time reader - first time poster...

Apparently there is a restriction on the ability of a Blackberry to receive emails while youre using it as a cell phone. Ive heard rumors that there is a 'switch' that Blackberry can chance to allow the BB to receive data while being used as a cell phone.

Is there any truth to that? Or can someone point me in the right direction.

[coreyg510]

no. data or phone. they cannot receive both at the same time

[stripesace]

isnt Cingulars recent upgrade to (i forget what it is) supposed to make this possible?

[coreyg510]

I haven't heard anything about it yet. I have been on the road a lot recently so I haven't had much time to research and updates from cingular

[Mark Rejhon]

Originally Posted by coreyg510

no. data or phone. they cannot receive both at the same time

That's true, but there's also a more complicated answer too.

BlackBerry is excellent at emulating simultaneous data and voice. BlackBerry is "always" on, which means you do not need to manually connect to the Internet.

However, when a voice call comes in, data pauses while the voice comes in. Sometimes (on many models) this only happens if data has a transmission pause, while on other models data is paused.

That's why some people sometimes gets a busy signal when they try to call you in the middle of a webpage download -- but that their phone call reaches you if they call you while you're reading a webpage on your BlackBerry.

It's essentially data with realtime voice standby, where voice interrupts data while data is IDLING when it's not currently transmitting an email or downloading a webpage. Actually, with emails, voice calls usually do not get interrupted because emails take only 1 second to transmit or receive, which is too fast to interrupt an initiated incoming voice call. So you can just start writing email while you are on the phone via speakerphone, and then send it (you can even do this on the 8700) -- the email will just go into your Outbox and get transmitted immediately after you hang up. It won't interrupt your phone call, it's just queued and sent automatically after the call.

Recently, on newer megabit-network models such as the 7130e (EVDO), voice calls will come through and temporarily interrupt ACTIVE data (your half-loaded webpage would "pause" until you hang up).

The BlackBerry handles it AMAZINGLY well -- they are the best "data and voice" multitasking handheld devices available because they manage to mix the two very cleverly, even though it's not possible to have both fully active truly simultaneously (yet).

So for pratical purposes: There is NO RESTRICTION on receiving and sending emails WHILE ON THE PHONE. The email is just DELAYED until immediately after the phone call.

[berry-bum]

Too much 'tech-speak'! Mark, you are of course absolutely right. But, why does a text message get delivered during a call? I'm on a 7100t and I can talk all day while sending and receiving sms messages.

[rcbjr]

Originally Posted by berry-bum

Too much 'tech-speak'! Mark, you are of course absolutely right. But, why does a text message get delivered during a call? I'm on a 7100t and I can talk all day while sending and receiving sms messages.

---
As I understand it this is because SMS uses the underlying phone network control channel, where the phone call and data transmission use the network communication channel.

Hope this helps.
Rcbjr

[scaredpoet]

That's correct. SMS messages use the paging channel of most cell phone networks, and it runs at realtively slow speed (something like 9600 bps in many cases). So the overhead for SMS is fairly low. A packet data channel, on the other head, requires significantly more resources, and right now, the wireless entworks aren't presently set up for one handset to handle both simultanouesly.