April 27, 2007

Take Your Black Berry and Verizon Around the World

Verizon Wireless is a great company. Great phones and excellent customer service.

However one problem they've had is that they didn't offer phones one could use in the US and overseas.

While Verizon Wireless uses a US based CDMA the rest of the world uses the more popular GSM.

RIM and VZW recently announced a new Black Berry that uses GSM/GPRS for voice and data. This new Black Berry will enable customers to travel, seamlessly from the US to Africa to Asia to Europe.

The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone will be available on May 14, 2007.

Computer World writes Global BlackBerry service is available for $64.99 a month on top of a voice plan, or for $69.99 a month without a voice plan. A pay-as-you-go feature allows customers to buy a voice plan and then purchase data capability for $20 per megabyte, according to a statement issued by the companies.

Gizmodo writes Bottom line: it's a sweet phone but still mainly an enterprise play. For those of you waiting for a more slender BlackBerry, like the Pearl that T-Mobile made famous, you can keep waiting. Also, if you're waiting for a T-Mobile-like consumer-friendly price plan for this baby, it ain't gonna happen. Not as long as they can lure in well-heeled international bankers who spend too much time in the Northeast US to pick any domestic carrier other than Verizon Wireless but really need some kind of mobile multinational e-mailing companion. Don't get me wrong, I want one bad. I just can't rationalize a device of such global reach (or such painful monthly gougings).

When you travel overseas what tools do you use? What tools do you find are most important.

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