Prepaid DATA for Blackberry in Germany
 

I have an unlocked Blackberry 8900-- used to be with T-Mobile and had the phone unlocked just before I canceled my account. Does anyone know of a prepaid DATA plan for Blackberry in Germany?

Unfortunately to date there is still no provider in Germany offering "Blackberry Internet Service" for prepaid customers. That means you can neither use eMail nor surf the web or use any other internet-based service with your Blackberry device.

Is this still true? My wife has a BB and is thinking of getting a contract with Base. As I hate contracts (and especially German Laufzeitverträge, with their annoying automatic renewal if you fail to cancel three months ahead of time, etc.), I was hoping there might be a way of just using it with Fonic or something. And the Base contract has expensive SMS, roaming, and international calls, so it's far from ideal for everything else she uses the phone for. (Note: I do not have a BlackBerry and have no idea how they work.)

yes, unfortunately it is still true. The only way to activate the BB services is given for special contracts, mostly business tariff contracts...

Chris

Vodafone today announced the introduction of a Blackberry option for prepaid customers. The CallYa Smartphone Blackberry will be available from June 18th at € 9.99/month and include 200MB of data volume:
Vodafone startet Prepaid-Angebot für Blackberry - teltarif.de News

Vodafone "Callya Smartphone Blackberry" Chaos
 

Setting Up a Vodafone Callya Blackberry Account

The Vodafone "Callya Smartphone Blackberry" tariff is very, very difficult to activate! Vodafone employees will confirm the current chaos! Neither online vodafone employees, nor vodafone shop employees can activate this new tariff. At the moment it may take up to 48 hours to become active - if you are lucky.

Ignore all the misleading advertising, the real monthly (30 day) charge for the vodafone callya prepaid blackberry tariff is 12.48 Euros. (2.49 Euros for the necessary basis tariff "Callya Openend Smartphone", plus 9.99 Euros for the necessary "Callya MobileInternet Flat" option.)

This is the easy way to active the "Callya Smartphone Blackberry" tariff:

- Buy a "Callya Smartphone Blackberry" sim card or a "Callya Blackberry Phone" from a vodafone shop. At the same time, buy a 15 Euro top-up. Let the shop employee register and top up your new sim. (The blackberry sim tariff cannot be activated without making a top up of at least 15 Euro!)

- Insert the sim card into your unlocked blackberry.

- Now call the vodafone Callya hotline number, 22911. This call will only cost you 29 cents, using your new sim card, even if you have to wait 10 minutes to speak to someone. Ignore the initial chance to speak to the outsourced call agents in Cairo, unless you also speak arabic. You will then be offered the chance to speak to a vodafone employee in Germany. Sometimes this person will contact the vodafone technical staff who can activate your sim. If you do not speak german, use google to find the contact telephone numbers for the english-speaking "Vodafone Enterprise IT-Support" Blackberry techies.

- If you go online to look at your new Callya Blackberry account, do not change any of the tariff options. There is no "blackberry tariff" option to find! This is why the normal vodafone shop and online employees cannot help you: they cannot find the tariff either!

- Now you have to wait until you receive your Blackberry activation SMS message: "Lieber Kunde, wir haben Ihre Blackberry Dienst jetzt aktiviert, bitte starten Sie Ihren Blackberry neu." Dear customer, we have now activated your Blackberry SIM card, please pull out the battery from your blackberry phone, wait 15 seconds and then reinsert it again.

- Now use a normal internet connection to create your new blackberry account directly with RIM and setup your 10 email forwarding accounts:

BlackBerry Internet Service

Good luck with your new blackberry!

very good post! thanks for explaining the chaos. There is also a nice article of this mess in german if someone wants to read: Die BlackBerry Odysee – und es geht doch! (Update) hrgajek.de – Henning Gajek's Blog

If you didn't fancy that, Most UK operators now offer Prepaid BB service, and aren't badly priced abroad.

I use a T-Mobile 8520, and have been to the Republic of Ireland and France with it, and have been getting charged 1GBP per 3MB of Data I use. Now Blackberry being the efficient service it is, I think it will be quite easy to stay within that, unless your an heavy user, in which case it may cost a bit more.