[kerph32]

Just posted this on my blog, so there are some concepts explained in detail that is probably not necessary here, but I didn't want to retype:

--
Since May, 2007, I have enjoyed what is referred to as "push" email on my Blackberry. Anything sent to my @gmail.com address was sent instantly to my phone, allowing me to get it right away as long as I was within the reach of a cellular tower. To say that I loved this ability would be an understatement.. no longer would I come back to my computer with 20 emails waiting, and no longer would I miss an important 'Latest Specials' notification from our local Mexican restaurant.

Well, I guess it was all too good to be true, and AT&T has decided to no longer offer this 'push' service for external email accounts. About two weeks ago, I noticed emails arriving in 'clumps', instead of instantly. For example, if I was at work and having an email conversation with my roommates over our house Google Group, 5-6 emails may be exchanged between the five of us over a matter of minutes. In the past, these emails would come instantly as soon as they were sent. Lately, however, my phone sits dormant for up to 15 minutes, followed by a barrage of vibrations (or tones if I have the speaker on) all in a row. So, it would appear that the phone is only checking for emails every 15 minutes.
WHAT? This cannot be... that's exactly the delay that I wanted to get away from (and succeeded in doing so for 10 months) by switching from Treo that I had with Verizon. I'm sure it seems ridiculous to many of you that a 15 minute delay could really matter at all, but it's the difference between being able to have an email conversation over the phone (free using the data plan) or having to use text messages to communicate via the written word (15 cents a pop).

So, tonight, after an hour on the phone I finally got the Blackberry specialist on duty for AT&T to fork over the info: They have indeed changed the way emails are forwarded, and the Blackberry Internet Service only polls email accounts every 15 minutes for new messages. (edit- thanks to Sith Apprentice) If it finds one, it checks back every 3 minutes for the next 15 minute cycle (so 5 times of 3 mintues). Ff it continues to find email it stays at 3 minutes, if in that 15 mintue time period it does not find email, then it goes back to checking every 15 minutes.(end edit) How rude.

This is just another effort to save costs, and I don't exactly blame AT&T for it, but I do hold a high level of contempt for their perceived attempts to cover up this new policy. I even had to go through the trouble of switching out my device last week because the local AT&T store didn't know what was going on. As a member of a few different Blackberry online forums, I have seen more and more posts regarding this issue, with no resolution found. Now that this new 'policy' of AT&Ts has been made clear to me, maybe a public outcry will elicit a reversal back to the glory that was true push email.

And, that's my rant for the night.

[Sith_Apprentice]

Originally Posted by kerph32

Just posted this on my blog, so there are some concepts explained in detail that is probably not necessary here, but I didn't want to retype:

--
Since May, 2007, I have enjoyed what is referred to as "push" email on my Blackberry. Anything sent to my @gmail.com address was sent instantly to my phone, allowing me to get it right away as long as I was within the reach of a cellular tower. To say that I loved this ability would be an understatement.. no longer would I come back to my computer with 20 emails waiting, and no longer would I miss an important 'Latest Specials' notification from our local Mexican restaurant.

Well, I guess it was all too good to be true, and AT&T has decided to no longer offer this 'push' service for external email accounts. About two weeks ago, I noticed emails arriving in 'clumps', instead of instantly. For example, if I was at work and having an email conversation with my roommates over our house Google Group, 5-6 emails may be exchanged between the five of us over a matter of minutes. In the past, these emails would come instantly as soon as they were sent. Lately, however, my phone sits dormant for up to 15 minutes, followed by a barrage of vibrations (or tones if I have the speaker on) all in a row. So, it would appear that the phone is only checking for emails every 15 minutes.
WHAT? This cannot be... that's exactly the delay that I wanted to get away from (and succeeded in doing so for 10 months) by switching from Treo that I had with Verizon. I'm sure it seems ridiculous to many of you that a 15 minute delay could really matter at all, but it's the difference between being able to have an email conversation over the phone (free using the data plan) or having to use text messages to communicate via the written word (15 cents a pop).

So, tonight, after an hour on the phone I finally got the Blackberry specialist on duty for AT&T to fork over the info: They have indeed changed the way emails are forwarded, and the Blackberry Internet Service only polls email accounts every 15 minutes for new messages. If one is found, the time interval is reduced to 10 minutes, and that happens again and again down to 8, 5, and 2 minutes. But, if there are no new messages found during one of the polls, the interval goes back to 15 minutes. This means that I could get an email, send my reply right away, and not get the reply until 10 minutes later. How rude.

This is just another effort to save costs, and I don't exactly blame AT&T for it, but I do hold a high level of contempt for their perceived attempts to cover up this new policy. I even had to go through the trouble of switching out my device last week because the local AT&T store didn't know what was going on. As a member of a few different Blackberry online forums, I have seen more and more posts regarding this issue, with no resolution found. Now that this new 'policy' of AT&Ts has been made clear to me, maybe a public outcry will elicit a reversal back to the glory that was true push email.

And, that's my rant for the night.

This is not accurate. It checks every 15 minutes for email (for most emails. gmail/yahoo is different). if it finds, it checks back every 3 minutes for the next 15 minute cycle (so 5 times of 3 mintues). if it continues to find email it stays at 3 minutes, if in that 15 mintue time period it does not find email, then it goes back to checking every 15 minutes. it has been this way for a while.

[kerph32]

Ah, thanks for the correction - I'll edit my original post to avoid confusion.
This just changed no more than 2 weeks ago, so it hasn't been that way for "a while", at least for me. Maybe I was just lucky though-
MK

[Sith_Apprentice]

The blackberry.net, Gmail and yahoo are different than that. it depends on the setup. This has been this way for the other emails since BIS 2.0.

[kerph32]

Here's a solution (probably obvious to many), and it actually leads to a "no difference than before the switch" experience-

Just set up your Gmail/Yahoo to forward to your @(carrier).blackberry.net address. In BIS, set up your blackberry.net address with a 'reply-to address' as the same as your Gmail/Yahoo. Works perfect again, true push, and recipients don't know any difference.

[kerph32]

Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice

The blackberry.net, Gmail and yahoo are different than that. it depends on the setup. This has been this way for the other emails since BIS 2.0.

That's my point though - that's how it works with Gmail now too, and I've seen similar posts/complaints about Yahoo accounts having email delays.

[option94]

Wirelessly posted (At&t curve)

My gmail and my yahoo still get pushed. Its instant. Scary almost. Maybe you should troubleshoot a little more. Maybe delete the account from bis, wait about ten minutes and then re-add it.

[kerph32]

Originally Posted by option94

Wirelessly posted (At&t curve)

My gmail and my yahoo still get pushed. Its instant. Scary almost. Maybe you should troubleshoot a little more. Maybe delete the account from bis, wait about ten minutes and then re-add it.

This is like telling the Pope that he should preach a little more

You wouldn't believe the amount of troubleshooting I've done, and as my post says, AT&T even switched out my device. I've tried deleting Gmail from BIS 3 times, each time waiting 30 minutes (waiting 10 does nothing, from what I've read)

My theory is that accounts are switched to this new 'non-push' policy as soon as the server 'realizes' that your account is still the old-style push; thsi could happen if you mess with your BIS settings, or if an AT&T rep decides to manually update your account. The switch on my device seems to coincide with the time that I was changing my signatures on BIS about 3 weeks ago. BUT, that's just a theory, and it could be totally random. My roommate's 8310 still gets Gmail pushed instantly.

The fix I posted after works perfectly though, so there's really no problem any more

[noethix]

Originally Posted by kerph32

Here's a solution (probably obvious to many), and it actually leads to a "no difference than before the switch" experience-

Just set up your Gmail/Yahoo to forward to your @(carrier).blackberry.net address. In BIS, set up your blackberry.net address with a 'reply-to address' as the same as your Gmail/Yahoo. Works perfect again, true push, and recipients don't know any difference.

With this solution, does the from: field at the received end still say the blackberry address? Are read e-mails synced? Sent e-mails saved?

[kerph32]

No, says Gmail
No
Yes

[Mr. Opportunist]

Originally Posted by kerph32

This is like telling the Pope that he should preach a little more

You wouldn't believe the amount of troubleshooting I've done, and as my post says, AT&T even switched out my device. I've tried deleting Gmail from BIS 3 times, each time waiting 30 minutes (waiting 10 does nothing, from what I've read)

My theory is that accounts are switched to this new 'non-push' policy as soon as the server 'realizes' that your account is still the old-style push; thsi could happen if you mess with your BIS settings, or if an AT&T rep decides to manually update your account. The switch on my device seems to coincide with the time that I was changing my signatures on BIS about 3 weeks ago. BUT, that's just a theory, and it could be totally random. My roommate's 8310 still gets Gmail pushed instantly.

The fix I posted after works perfectly though, so there's really no problem any more

I think there are just issues with your account, I have 4 8310's all of which have gmail addresses on them. All receive emails before the gmail web client receives them.

[justdonating]

Is your gmail account setup in BIS for imap or POP3. When I set my gmail account up for imap, I get the behavior you mentioned. Switched it back to POP3 and back to instant delivery.

[kerph32]

I was on POP with Gmail

[wibbly]

Originally Posted by kerph32

... and recipients don't know any difference.

Sadly, not my experience. Receipents (depending on what email client they use) see the BB email address too (and mail sent 'on behalf of' the email address you want it seen you were sending from)

[vsheetz]

Originally Posted by kerph32

Here's a solution (probably obvious to many), and it actually leads to a "no difference than before the switch" experience-

Just set up your Gmail/Yahoo to forward to your @(carrier).blackberry.net address. In BIS, set up your blackberry.net address with a 'reply-to address' as the same as your Gmail/Yahoo. Works perfect again, true push, and recipients don't know any difference.

I have had a mail.com personal email address for many years, and did not want to change to a gmail or yahoo address. I am new to having a BB and as described here is how I set mine up with my non gmail/yahoo account. It is working just fine.

Filtering/blocking can be done at @(carrier).blackberry.net to limit the incoming emails to my mail.com acct that come through to the BB - a very good thing.

When sending from my BB, my @(carrier).blackberry.net acct is set to appear the email came from my mail.com acct. Some email clients may let the user see this, reflecting the mail sent on behalf of or similar - but this is not a problem for me or my receipients.

This works better than having to use a gmail/yahoo acct, IMHO.

[kerph32]

Well, after using the Blackberry.net setup for about 6 weeks, I decided to give Gmail through BIS another whirl, and whaddya know, Gmail is pushing again. So, I've disabled forwarding>blackberry.net and am back to normal. So, if you're experiencing delays in receiving emails, I would suggest disabling that account in BIS and give it a few weeks, then try again. AT&T certainly has some quirks