Running an enterprise eMail system is hard. And when the C-level folks (CIO, CEO, etc) demand BlackBerries, we then have to pick up expertise in running BlackBerry Enterprise Servers. Whilst this is not simple, its all part of the day job as far as messaging folks like us. And then at some point, we get involved with carriers. People who actually supply airtime, handsets, SIMs and of course the all important BlackBerry service that enables these wonderful devices.
I'm a fairly patient man (honestly!) - my wife and I have successfuly brought up a teenage daughter (akin to defusing a nuclear device with a carrot), and have dealt with organisations such as phone carriers before. We dont expect much from them - and we expect frankly to be ripped off at every turn. This is what happens in this market, and we've come to expect it. We might not like it, but generally speaking, we can walk into any shop and pick up a phone, sign an onerous carrier conract for a lifetime, and walk out with a working phone.
When we start dealing with Carriers on a business level however, trying to enable our BlackBerry devices, we enter a whole new world of pain. The seventh level of hell. We come face to face (or phone to phone) with the Carrier customer service departments. And we have to explain to people - who frankly dont know and dont care - what we're asking for. I suspect these departments (And I say this of all phone carriers) are filled with people who were thrown out of the Traffic Warden school for being too nasty or thrown out of the Civil Service / Local Government for being incompetent.
BlackBerry handsets come with two flavours of connection.
- BlackBerry Internet Service - or BIS. This is what Joe Public gets on his BlackBerry when he buys one out of a shop. It basically gives you a BlackBerry thats connected to the carriers eMail system. And very little else. Its a no-mess, no fuss connection method. Folks like this, its a huge growth area, and its simple.
- BlackBerry Enterprise Service - or BES. Chaps, this is what we're after. We want this little bundle of plastic and sillicon to be under ourcontrol, via OUR BES server.
First the bad news. The carrier controls what kind of
BlackBerry it is by the subscription it places on the SIM card. So when you pick up a handset from a shop, by default in most carriers, it'll be a BIS handset. Or (as in my case below) the telephone call center person picked the first thing that said
BlackBerry on the list.
I found this out to my cost last August. On a whim, my wife and I entered a Carphone Warehouse store, and explained very carefully that we wanted a BES handset. "Sure", "Fine", etc. We walked out of the store. It took FOUR months for Carphone Warehouse to not admit that the store person had actually not understood a word, and just wanted a handset sale. So we had to return that phone in the end (and all the hassles with keeping the phone number, etc). Up until then, I quite liked Carphone Warehouse as some of their more technical staff had actually received some training and sounded like they knew what they were doing. Despite being sold a T-Mobile subscription that did not work in my house.
Using this awful experience, we then approached BT - British Telecom. And again, carefully explained what we wanted, made sure that the telephone operator actually understood the difference, and had placed the correct order. Back in November. Well, its taken me till MARCH to get it fixed. And involved swapping handsets. Unlike Carphone Warehouse - who couldnt actually switch us from Personal to Business without losing our number - BT could (repairing one mistake). After another couple of months, we finally got the number ported, and after another MONTH being basically messed around, my wife - Sorry - CFO - now has a working Pearl, on one of my BES servers. My Daughters Pearl has taken over a month and some frosty eMails, but at this point in time, its not being blocked. Perhaps this month. (I view BT as having internal processes so arcane that they make IBM look like some sort of springing gazelle in comparison. Coverage is good, price is excellent, but actually getting them to provide it is like kicking a dead whale along the beach)
Other carriers I've dealt with have included T-Mobile (my current carrier) who regularly charges me £150 anytime I spend any time outside the country. Not as bad as my previous carrier - O2 - who charged me even more and seemed to employ Vogons on their 'customer service line', or Vodafone who ripped me off for £2,000 in the space of a few months. (On the plus side, Vodafone are the only carrier who could actually supply BES handsets from the shop, that worked on the same day. Kudos for actually training their staff. I guess you get what you pay for)
Why were these bills so large ?
(And this bit is relevant to ANYONE who uses a mobile phone with a data subscription abroad). The carriers will typically give you a 50mb or 75mb allowance for data whilst in your home country, and then charge you £7.50 ($15 USD) per Megabyte or part megabyte whilst abroad. The European Commission are currently investigating this blatant rip-off and the carriers have responded by dropping their price to less than a pound per megabyte (but watch out - it might only be on new contracts). I cant wait till the EU finally hurts them for this. Because, as we all know, data phones with eMail (BlackBerries, Apple iPhones and even *shudder* windows mobile phones) all chirp away on the data network, consuming network bandwidth. Weve all heard of stories of folks taking iPhones on cruises and returning to a $4,000 bill... You dont want to be one of these.
Clearly, gone are the days when using a mobile phone to talk whilst abroad is hugely expensive. Moble data whilst abroad is still hugely expensive, and you should beware.
So, BES administrators, treat your phone carrier as a strange and extremely expensive beast. Train them quickly that that you require are BES enabled SIM cards and BES enabled BlackBerry handsets for your users, and you should beat your carriers hard and often to ensure that your few international roaming customers (be they BlackBerry or some inferior device) can use these handsets whilst abroad without bankrupting your company. Keep them as jumpy as a unicyclist in a minefield by constantly demanding they lower their prices, improve their services. And remember - the more applications and the more use that our users make of these handsets - a success by all means - means more bandwidth used.
There is hope on the horizon in terms of Data charges. The newer BlackBerries (The curve 8820 - of which I have one) and the new Pearl 8120 (Which I've just ordered for my daughter) as well as the iPhones and clunky windows mobile devices all have Wifi access on them. In America, T-Mobile already allow subscribers to hook into the mobile carrier infrastructure using internet connections, and therefore remove these abhorrent 'roaming charges'. Newer handsets - such as the BlackBerries - now allow us to receive and make mobile calls using this connection method - so hopefully in future, we can just disable our SIM's completely, and use Wifi access whilst abroad.. More on the implementation of this in a later article (once I've figured this ou!). So the conclusion from this paragraph is to ensure that all new handsets can perform this kind of function, making any future migration pain free. In other words, insead of ordering chunky old 8707s on your next handset order, start ordering nice new 8820's, 8120's or 8820's...
