[BVI Beach Bum]

My contract is up with Tmo at the end of the month and desperately need a new provider. I am on my 7100t constantly and can't stand Tmo horrible service any longer. Everone tells me to go with Verizon but they probably won't have the 8700 till my kids are in college and there current BB are so old compared to everyone elses. I probably would get the older BB with Verizon if it at least had EDVO. Please help with any thoughts, anyone have Cingular BB service here in Chicago? How is the service??

[KonTiki]

Rumors are that Verizon will activate their EVDO shortly, I have read that in other threads here. I have a 7250 from Verizon and personally I think it is plenty fast as it is, no doubt that when EVDO is activated things will move a heck of a lot faster. If youd want to you could try to pick up a used 7250 until the 8700 is available from Verizon. Again the rumors here are that we are looking at the middle of next year for that to happen. I do not work for Verizon so please do not hold me to that, just putting my 2 cents worth.

BTW the service so far for me has been great, always fast, ontime, and relevant. When they were stuck with a small issue I had they connected me directly to a Rim Tech who in turn solved my issue in a matter of minutes.

[kmehling]

FWIW - we just got a BB VZW 7250 here at my office. We have about a dozen BB's in various flavors floating around, but this one came in with 4.0.0.271 on it from VZW. User was complaining they were getting random "Data connection Refused" errors on the way into work this morning (first night of ownership).

Called VZW to ask WTF and they said, "Oops - sorry, we had it marked as an EV-DO capable device, but it's not"

<---- confused

I asked her to check again, I said, "Are you sure, becaue I've heard a lot of rumors that the 7250 will be EV-DO capable after a firmware upgrade which is supposed to be rolled out shortly."

Her response, "No - as far as I know, the 7250 is not EV-DO capable" - so I imagine this is her way of saying, "stop asking, it's not going to work in its current state."

[Tennvol]

Talked to my Verizon corp. rep and he said mid-November for the EV-DO on the 7250.

[stonent]

The thing is, is most people on their end associate EV-DO directly with V-Cast. The 7250 is not powerful enough to stream live content like the other EV-DO devices.

[bdestephen]

The 7250 is EVDO capable. You will need BlackBerry OS 4.1 to enable it.

[bdestephen]

At least that is my understanding.

[Bunker]

Originally Posted by bdestephen

At least that is my understanding.

While 4.1 will include EVDO, there are earlier versions which will be compatiable as well. 4.0.2 was on the device I saw demo'd to me with EVDO capability.

Now Bell Mobility has made some noise on BB and EVDO, I expect we will see announcementds from Verizon in the next couple of weeks.

Bunker

[ilguy]

Well from the looks of this Verizon brochure posted in the other thread, I highly doubt they will turn evdo on for the 7250. http://www.blackberryforums.com/atta...tachmentid=566

[KonTiki]

I am just curious, if the 7250 is indeed EV-DO ready just a matter of software upgrade, for what reason would verizon refuse to turn it on. I am sure that they will indeed charge more for the service, and after all it is a matter of economics. I do not see Verizon wasting away an opportunity to make additional money. Yes granted that enough people would switch over to the 7130e for the EV-DO, and granted that they could simply release that one with EV-DO turned on first. But I imagine that once the hoopla of the new one dies down and they realize that there still are a lot of customers that did not want to switch their full keyboard Berries for the Mickey Mouse keyboard on the 7130, that realizing the loss of revenue, will drive them to turn it on. Not to say that just a matter of staying competetive would dictate for them to do so. Just my .025 cents worth.

[stonent]

Still Blackberries are not bandwith intensive. It's not like you are streaming vido at 350K per second.

[stonent]

About the CDMA chip in the 7130e

http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releas...press1227.html

[kmehling]

Originally Posted by ilguy

Well from the looks of this Verizon brochure posted in the other thread, I highly doubt they will turn evdo on for the 7250. http://www.blackberryforums.com/atta...tachmentid=566

Makes me think the drone I spoke to at VZW was right :(

disappointing to say the least, if it turns out to be true.

[sidsub]

I just picked up a 7250 last weekend, and while I never asked, the sales rep herself told me that these were going to get "broadband access". Apparently, a recent change came down from Verizon hq that they were to provision these as having ev-do, which had the sales reps confused until she was told it would just take a software upgrade for the ev-do to work. Or that's what she told me... after I had already agreed to buy the device, by the way.

[Bunker]

Originally Posted by kmehling

Makes me think the drone I spoke to at VZW was right :(

disappointing to say the least, if it turns out to be true.

It is definelty not true. I have seen the 7250 with EVDO active. I am waiting for launch and pricing plans.

Bunker

[lunchboxfett]

EVDO does not support voice and data at the same time. The next revision will. The reason that the voice call came through is the way the blackberry handles the data.
EDGE doesn't support voice and data either although UMTS does not that there is a blackberry that uses UMTS.

[jlopatin]

I just want everyone to know that the 7250 DOES have EVDO. If I get a chance, I'll take a pic.

It is not available to the public YET, but it works. As far as I can tell, it doesn't make too much of a difference. At this time, emails don't come in while a phone call is in progress... Browsing is much faster. you still can't tether right now.

Any questions? please ask.

[ilguy]

When browsing do phone calls still go to voicemail?

[rjharary]

Pardon my ignorance, whats faster? evdo or edge?

[jlopatin]

Originally Posted by ilguy

When browsing do phone calls still go to voicemail?

It seems like calls come through now!

I was using verichat, and I had someone send me constant one line messages, and I called myself... it went through! Very cool.