Being on the bleeding edge of technology is quite difficult and time consuming. I have a Blackberry 7250 which, when I bought it, was only capable of connecting to the 1X network on Bell Mobility. There have been enhancements to the network and they’re now offering 1xEV or EVDO network capabilities in the GTA. This is cool because it’s damn fast and since their network is always expanding, it’s just a matter of time until they upgrade each of the cell sites along the way and I’ll have high-speed internet wherever I go. Now, high-speed service on a blackberry is great and all, but the icing on the cake is that with a USB cable or via bluetooth, you can “teather” your laptop to your blackberry and then all of the sudden, you have high-speed service on your notebook wherever you go too.
The problem I’m finding is that even though this upgrade has been available for a week now, no one at Bell seems to know anything about it. I called the data support people at 1-877-DATA-123 and they’re very helpful. They told me to go to a Bell World to get the upgrade. So I did. Instead of being helpful or saying they don’t know, they guy was a complete jerk about it. First saying; “It’s only available in Toronto, so you don’t need it.” then saying, “we’ll have to send out your blackberry to get it’s chip upgraded.” Then finally jerkingly complying with; “Well, we’ll have to call customer service and they’re closed today.” If you don’t know something, the smartest thing you can do is say; I don’t know and figure it out. The guy was a total ass and he was pissy because I knew more about the technology than he did. What a tool.
Anyway, the Bell blackberry software page doesn’t have the new version (4.0.2.XX) which upgrades the radio to be able to use the EVDO network, but the Telus one does and I found a guide which said that you can download that one and then just delete the vendor.xml file and your blackberry will update to that version. So, having not much to lose, I did that. Works perfectly, but I haven’t been in the direction of Mississauga yet, so I don’t know what needs to be done to enable the EVDOness of it all, if anything.
I called Bell customer service and they told me that there’s nothing that they have to do on their end as far as enabling it. I’m wondering if there’s a star code I need to punch in or something. The guides for the same process with Verizon have one. She called me back afterwards and said that there’s more information on the bell site and gave me the URL. But the Voyageur software which does the teathering doesn’t have RIM 7250 in it’s list of hardware, so I’m guessing it’s got to be updated too. I tried downloading an update but that didn’t solve it.
Next step is to drive towards Mississauga at lunch to see what I can see. According to Bell’s EVDO coverage map, it starts at 407 and 401. According to Telus’ the range just catches Milton.
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