End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
arstechnica.com
End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#2> As of January 4th, the phones will no longer be provided with provisioning services, meaning that they will gradually lose the ability to join networks, including the cellular network.
I honestly don't get this. How can calls via the regular cellular network stop working reliably? I'm using a dumbphone that hasn't seen any updates in its entire lifetime and it still works reliably for making calls.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#3> As of January 4th, the phones will no longer be provided with provisioning services, meaning that they will gradually lose the ability to join networks, including the cellular network. I honestly don't get this. How can calls via the regular cellular network stop working reliably? I'm using a dumbphone that hasn't seen any updates in its entire lifetime and it still works reliably for making calls.
I work for an ISP, and when we provision land lines, its a sort of handshake between the device and our network. Due to older dumbphones provisioning requiring minimal effort, it seems that they don't require the same tools. BlackBerry devices however are running a full-fledged OS that requires support. Since the affected devices are at latest from 2013, it seems reasonable that most of those affected have moved off of said devices.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#4> As of January 4th, the phones will no longer be provided with provisioning services, meaning that they will gradually lose the ability to join networks, including the cellular network. I honestly don't get this. How can calls via the regular cellular network stop working reliably? I'm using a dumbphone that hasn't seen any updates in its entire lifetime and it still works reliably for making calls.
I work for an ISP, and when we provision land lines, its a sort of handshake between the device and our network. Due to older dumbphones provisioning requiring minimal effort, it seems that they don't require the same tools. BlackBerry devices however are running a full-fledged OS that requires support. Since the affected devices are at latest from 2013, it seems reasonable that most of those affected have moved off…
Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it. Is there something that's required to be provided by Blackberry on either side to make this work? I would have kind of expected that 2G/3G/etc. are device-agnostic and would work with just about any device with a valid SIM card trying to connect to the network.
I know someone who's using an older pre-Android Blackberry, so I'll have to figure out for them if they need to get a new phone next week. As they only use it very occasionally, I'd be glad if they could keep using it for simply making calls.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work for an ISP, and when we provision land lines, its a sort of handshake between the device and our network. Due to older dumbphones provisioning requiring minimal effort, it seems that they don't require the same tools. BlackBerry devices however are running a full-fledged OS that requires support. Since the affected devices are at latest from 2013, it seems reasonable that most of those affected have moved off…
Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it. Is there something that's required to be provided by Blackberry on either side to make this work? I would have kind of expected that 2G/3G/etc. are device-agnostic and would work with just about any device with a valid SIM card trying to connect to the network. I know someone who's using an older pre-Android Blackberry, so I'll have to figu…
The older Blackberries relied on a centralized server for configuration and setup of both public and corporate settings.
The devices _should_ be able to make calls and text (baseline SMS), but they might error out in various things (browser dead, contacts gone, even some menus dead or stalling) and if they are reset you might not be able to get texting back (since it _might_ not rely on the SIM card to set the SMS message center, etc.)
There were so many changes over the years that I’m not sure how much will still actually work, but I think it’s a given that calls will work — just try to get them to backup their contacts somehow, since I think that is the most basic info that was read off the SIM card on initial setup but not written back.
(I was a PM for BlackBerry services at Vodafone in the early 2000s)
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#6Nooooo this is so sad to hear as I was recently thinking about getting a blackberry for work. I have the Samsung Galaxy S21 though which is my personal phone.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#7> As of January 4th, the phones will no longer be provided with provisioning services, meaning that they will gradually lose the ability to join networks, including the cellular network. I honestly don't get this. How can calls via the regular cellular network stop working reliably? I'm using a dumbphone that hasn't seen any updates in its entire lifetime and it still works reliably for making calls.
Blackberry was always the weird one out that effectively depended on special service from your provider combined with special tariffs for using them. This is a legacy from when they were explicitly enterprise devices and you couldn't exactly buy them normally.
Similarly, the core functionality of the original BB - email - is no longer supported (though you can probably run it still) because the special server software (BB didn't run normal email originally) was withdrawn. This special server communicated with your phone provider IIRC to handle BB-only special features like email (back when GPRS was barely starting)
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it. Is there something that's required to be provided by Blackberry on either side to make this work? I would have kind of expected that 2G/3G/etc. are device-agnostic and would work with just about any device with a valid SIM card trying to connect to the network. I know someone who's using an older pre-Android Blackberry, so I'll have to figu…
The older Blackberries relied on a centralized server for configuration and setup of both public and corporate settings. The devices _should_ be able to make calls and text (baseline SMS), but they might error out in various things (browser dead, contacts gone, even some menus dead or stalling) and if they are reset you might not be able to get texting back (since it _might_ not rely on the SIM card to set the SMS me…
To further this, BlackBerries relied on a special GPRS APN to get access to the internet. BlackBerry had VPNs and leased lines with major carriers and Blackberries would communicate via the APN to proxies located in BlackBerry data centers. All the network config was stored on the phone in "Service Books" and could be pushed out via carriers or BES Admins.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work for an ISP, and when we provision land lines, its a sort of handshake between the device and our network. Due to older dumbphones provisioning requiring minimal effort, it seems that they don't require the same tools. BlackBerry devices however are running a full-fledged OS that requires support. Since the affected devices are at latest from 2013, it seems reasonable that most of those affected have moved off…
Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it. Is there something that's required to be provided by Blackberry on either side to make this work? I would have kind of expected that 2G/3G/etc. are device-agnostic and would work with just about any device with a valid SIM card trying to connect to the network. I know someone who's using an older pre-Android Blackberry, so I'll have to figu…
> Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it
The underlying point is that the Blackberry was not your average smartphone.
Your average smartphone (assuming it is not carrier locked) can be used forever (although it would not be advisable to do so due to lack of security and OS updates).
The Blackberry was a wolf in sheep's clothing. It might just look like another smartphone, but it had heavy upstream dependencies:
- Specific carrier contracts were required (i.e. similar to when the iPhone originally came out, although for a long time now you can use an iPhone with any 4G/5G SIM ... this is not the case with Blackberry).
- If it was an enterprise model, you needed to be running Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) somewhere (it would figure out how by first doing a phone-home to Blackberry HQ in Canada). If it couldn't talk to BES, it became an unusable brick.
- If it was a consumer model, it needed to phone-home to Canada (Blackberry HQ where they ran a "cloud" servers). I can't remember if you needed an account in Canada, I suspect you did because I think that's how email worked (they would login to IMAP on your behalf and push the mails to you).
So I guess the obvious implication here is that the Canada datacentre is going to be killed off. At the same time, many carriers have no doubt already been removing Blackberry plans for new customers already (and perhaps nudging existing customers off).
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#10> Unlike the people who developed Android, BlackBerry's leadership was blindsided by the iPhone's popularity
Android was blindsided by iPhone reveal, but the developers had the foresight to see where it was headed.