I'm using my 8700c here in Poland on the ERA network which has a blackberry plan. I popped in the ERA sim since my device is unlocked and it works very well here through my hosted BES with link2exchange. ERA here does not sell any 8700 series devices yet, only the 7290. I have pretty much had no problems with anything on this device for most part but there are times that I am wondering if there are compatibility issues with this device and using their SIM/etc.
For example:
1) Sometimes i'll take the device out of my pocket or from my desk and it'll say SIM CARD ERROR and i'll have to reboot it and it works away. It has done this twice in a 2 month period or so .. so I don't know if its random or it cannot read the sim card correctly or other things of the sort.
2) I was in another city this weekend (Wroclaw), where I experienced various amounts of problem compared to the city where I am currently working in (Krakow). It was using the same network, but maybe their towers there have serious issues with handoffs. I would be using my device and suddently any email I sent, sms I sent or phone calls I tried to make would not go through. The radio signal would still show full, but it was as if it was frozen. If I made a call it would say "call failed". I would try to disable the radio and it would never turn off, if I tried again it would say "please wait until radio turns off". Waited 10 minutes..nothing.. Pulled the battery out, rebooted, boom worked again. Sometimes for 5 hours, sometimes for 1h. I was moving around the city so would anyone think this is some sort of handoff issues with the specific towers there? Everytime, I noticed a trend. when the device froze it read EDGE, but when it rebooted at the same spot it was in GPRS? when I took the train back and got back here it worked perfectly and I haven't noticed any of these problems so far.
Would these be issues with the network or would it be more likely to be a problem with the SIM card I have and get another one? since ERA was designed to accomodate 7290..which didn't support MMS. The option to have MMS on my 8700 is not available, even though this network definitely supports MMS and as they have many camera phones and even the rates for MMS' are available. my 8700 used to display MMS when I used it in Canada on Rogers.. so I don't know why it dissapeared here?
Any comments on these issues would be great
Nick
8700c in Europe / Network issues?
