BlackBerry® Z10

[dejanh]

Hi everyone,

I bought my lovely Z10 from Bell and am using it paired with the Bell (supposed to be) 4G LTE network.  However, despite the fact that I have a 4G LTE SIM, live in a prime 4G LTE reception area (smack in the middle of Metro Vancouver), and having spent several hours with Bell techs trying to get my phone to work with the 4G LTE network the best that I can get is H (not even H+ or 4G).  Nothing that they have tried or that I have tried works.  So far I have used two SIM cards, one LTE and one regular and both times the best I can get for service is H.  Please do keep in mind that my Bold 9900 which I still have gets H+ with full bars on the exact same spot where I get only H with 4 bars with the Z10.

Further to this, using the 4G LTE SIM if I toggle the mobile network off and then on, the phone will quickly establish a connection with H, then after about 30 seconds it will drop back down to h with 2 bars, then switch to 4G LTE for about 5-10 seconds and then drop the network entirely (no connection at all, emergency calls only), and then finally after about 30 seconds to a minute it will recover and settle on H only.

What the heck is going on here?  I am going to go to a Bell store today on the advice of Bell techs and get them to test my 4G LTE SIM in one of their phones to determine if it is my SIM or the device itself.

Can anyone share their experience?  Any problems being reported?  The best I could find on the net in this regard are the issues that a lot of iPhone 5 users were having but the causes and fixes are spotty.  Many remedied the problem by replacing their hardware pointing to a hardware issue instead of network issue.  Others continue to have issues to this day.  There are no reports that I can find on Z10s and extremely limited information on Android devices (only a few people reporting SGS3s with similar problems).

Please help

[Mik78]

I have a similar problem with a Z10 and M1 provider.

I notice an erratic behaviour of the data connection. Often the data connection drop, move from H+ to G to nothing back to H.. If I try to browse the web it is incredibly slow and half of the time I get the error message it can't load the page.
I connected the Z10 to the laptop using the hotspot function. A simple ping to the M1 DNS or www.google.com shows 50% packets loss. Half of the time a DNS lookup return a time-out.

I found this on the web http://www.berryqa.com/vodafone-facing-issues-with-the-blackberry-z10-data/
It seems the same problem I am having.

[dejanh]

Yeah, I feel that some carriers still have work to do to make their networks function well with this device.  With that said, I found out from Bell here that they are actually blocking me from using LTE.  Since I have an unlimited data plan they do not want to allow me to be on LTE.  I have to give up my unlimited data plan in order to get LTE service, which of course I am not going to do.  Therefore, my reason for the problem was the fact that I could connect to LTE for a few seconds but then the network would boot me off automatically.

[Mik78]

Same contract lock out here. With the old unlimited BES plan, no LTE.

[dejanh]

Oh, that's too bad to hear.  I really don't understand how these carriers can get away with this type of behavior, but clearly they can.  Denying service just because you want the person to give up the plan is really dirty business and very unfortunate.  We are also not the only ones in this boat.  There are many of us that face the same problem.  To be honest though, until the content on the Internet is so demanding that you actually need LTE speeds it is simply better to stick to an unlimited plan.  I still get decent speeds and I don't have to worry about data usage.

[drewread]

Thanks to LNP you have the biggest bargaining chip on your side... churn.

[dejanh]

That would be the case if somebody was actually offering an unlimited data plan for the same price, but the reality is that they simply are not.  I easily rake up over 1GB of usage in the first 4-5 days of the billing month and for $65 per month for unlimited data + voice plan I don't think that I will be finding anything comparable any time soon.  Bell has also disabled LTE for unlimited plans on the billing system level, meaning they have made the SOC for LTE incompatible with the unlimited plan.  There is no way to get around that.

[drewread]

Yes, but sometimes the threat of a long time customer leaving is enough to have the 'customer retentions' department make you a very nice offer. never hurts to try. :d

[Mik78]

A good news and a bad one.
The good news is that the problem is solved. Now the Z10 connect to the network and browse the web wonderfully.
The bad news is that I had to surrender the unlimited data plan and go for a new (limited) data plan.
The old unlimited BES plan doesn't work with the Z10 even though it worked well with the iPhone and Windows Phone 8.
But with the Z10 no way.
After the new data plan activation it even connect to the LTE.