BIS Outages Maybe Due to thier Upgrades (CONFIRMED) by TMO Techs

Blackberry BIS Outages

Maybe Due to thier Upgrades

(CONFIRMED) by TMO Techs

 

 

NHCBBA was just on the phone with T-Mobile and found out there is a PROBLEM with the BIS system… (CONFIRMED)  They stated that this is problems with connecting to the RIM Servers to SEND email and other things on the RIM NETWORK.  NHCBBA started to have trouble over this past weekend with not being able to send out any Email from our Blackberry 9780 and 9530 phones.  We had just posted a story on that RIM is make a BIG upgrade from 4.0 to BIS 4.1.  So it might be happening as we speak here in the USA.

 

Please keep us updated if your having trouble on your Blackberry’s also send us a email (Tips@nhcbba.com), BBM or comment below

BIS 4.1 Rollout Dates Confirmed for September & October (On Schedule)

Back in July we got a sneak peak at the BIS 4.1 feature set  from N4BB along with tentative rollout dates for Asia Pacific on Sept 10th, Europe on Sept 23rd, and North America on October 8th. We just confirmation from one of our sources that these dates have not changed except for North America getting slightly pushed off to October 10th, 2011 which is oddly a Monday. Sadly there is no word about the different PlayBook interface system hinted in the last leak. The official change log for the rollout is below:

Product Overview

BlackBerry® Internet Service Email 4.1 (BIS-E 4.1) represents the latest service update to RIM’s retail email offering targeted at the Prosumer segment. BIS-E 4.1 introduces Message Improvements, Inbox Priming, BIS Account Management Updates, Carrier Admin Reporting, and additional language support.

Tips & Tricks: BlackBerry Enterprise Activation on a BIS Data Plan

With the onslaught of new devices and device changes, there’s sometimes a need to activate your device on a Blackberry Enterprise Server Express.  With new devices, BES IT policies, software upgrades, difficulties explaining to users how to download from appworld, software compatibility issues occur (as a good friend of mine recently mentioned in his article) and one looks like a star when they have an alternate method to do this.  The point of this article is one such method.

 

On many carriers, when your Blackberry Device is on a BIS plan, the Enterprise Activation menu item is removed as an available feature. This is generally done by the change or  removal to the service books on the device with it’s interaction with the carrier’s network.

Now for the fun stuff!

BlackBerry Management Center Set to Launch in Mid-August

In case you have not been paying attention RIM has been cooking up their BlackBerry Management Center for a few months now. They have been beta testing their latest small business product and so far people are really liking it. It lets small businesses manage BlackBerrys without a BES server by linking their BIS accounts together along with BlackBerry Protect. That way one central administrator or administrators can manage the business or family BlackBerrys and make sure they are backed up and have the correct settings. You can also centrally control the BlackBerry Protect settings that let you find or wipe lost phones.

 

RIM sent out the email below to beta participants who were kind enough to forward it along. The current tentative date for BlackBerry Management Center to launch is Mid August and hopefully RIM will be able to pull that off.

BIS 4.1 Leaked Slides Hint at Different PlayBook Email System

We know that native email is coming to the BlackBerry PlayBook soon but its nice to see more signs pointing in that direction. After writing up yesterday about the leaked BIS 4.1 feature set I noticed the last slide mentioned something interesting as a “User Interface Change.” In it RIM says they have updated the BIS login page and setup page to “advise user(s) that BlackBerry tablet setup in not supported when using these interfaces.”

Which begs the question of where and how it will be supported…

via: bbreview

BIS 4.1 Feature Set Leaked – Rollout in September/October

Wow BIS is finally getting a significant feature bump with v4.1. The team at N4BB managed to score slides detailing all of the features coming in BIS 4.1 along with rollout dates. Some of the features are also BlackBerry OS 7.0 specific which should be launching around the same time. According to their sources BIS 4.1 will be rolling out to Asia Pacific on Sept 10th, Europe on Sept 23rd, and North America on October 8th.

 

I am really excited about the new features including my favorite which is email inbox priming. That is a feature that has been available on BES servers for awhile giving you access to your last chunk of emails. With BIS 4.1 it will preload the most recent 20 emails so you will have conversations on your device preloaded. There are loads of other goodies including better account management and message improvements for OS 7.0 so check them out in the slides!

via:bbreview

BlackBerry Internet Service 4.1 gets detailed

BlackBerry users will soon be getting a much needed update to the BlackBerry Internet Service, commonly known as BIS. According to information N4BB received, we can expect to see BIS 4.1 come in waves with Asia Pacific first (September 10th), Europe next (September 23rd) followed finally by North America (October 8th).

It looks like new BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry OS 7 will have increased message limit sizes, including the body of the email and attachments sent/received. This means fewer truncated emails and a reduction in the amount of times a user will need to hit “receive more”. It is unknown at this time if these changes will also be available for pre-BB7 devices.

There are also changes being made to email accounts, such as when adding a new email address to your BIS account, the last 20 emails on the server will be pushed to your device. Additional changes include added security for email accounts and the ability to switch SIMs with no interruption to email service.

To see more of what’s in store with the BIS 4.1 update, check out the rest of the slides after the break.

SmrtGuard Beats BlackBerry Protect to Multi-User Management

We know that RIM is working on a new Management Center that will allow small businesses to manage multiple BIS accounts along with BlackBerry Protect. It is currently in the Beta Zone but only available to a relatively small number of customers. SmrtGuard offers similar features to BlackBerry Protect but they got the jump on RIM by releasing the ability to manage multiple users from one dashboard.

 

Unlike BlackBerry Protect, SmrtGuard has a yearly license fee but they are adding in an incentive. Users who purchase a SmrtGuard Yearly Pro subscription will receive two more yearly subscriptions to give to other users who want to join their group FOR FREE! You can then purchase more if you need more than those three. With the service you will be able to remotely track, wipe, and lock devices in the group. SmrtGuard is also cross platform with BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone supported.

You can read more about this multi user feature on their features page or in their user guides.

via:bbreview

BlackBerry Bold 9900 gets shown off in Vietnam

[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ]

Although the BlackBerry Bold 9900 may be delayed for consumers that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of them out there. Even during BlackBerry World it wasn’t all that rare to see plenty of folks making use of the device — not as many as officially released devices mind you but if you were looking for a Bold 9900 they were easy to spot. This latest sighting comes to us from Vietnam, and also gives quite a reivew of the device itself. You’ll have to hit Google Translate to read it but if you’re just wanting to see more of the device you can jump on past the break for some nice photos.

Source: Vietnam BIS Community; via: CrackBerry Forums

Possible BIS outage across Europe and North America this past Monday and Tues

OK We’ve been getting plenty of users in North America and Europe letting us know their has been some issues with BIS as of late. Many folks in the UK have spoken up in the Other Sites forums and for some North American users BIS over WiFi has been down for what is going on Monday and Tue. Some carriers are advising that it is due to a BIS update that is rolling out now but — the accuracy in that info cannot be confirmed at this time. What about you all, any issues? If so speak up in the comments