I am using a fully unlocked T-Mobile 8900. When it was brand new, I registered it with Fido in Canada with BIS. It worked perfectly. I have since cancelled my service with Fido; had them remove my PIN from their system; and have moved to West Africa.
In West Africa, I have subscribed to pre-paid BIS with a local carrier.
Fido uses the North American BIS servers. West Africa uses the European BIS servers. This appears to be important later.
The symptoms of the problem are:
(1) My service will sporadically switch between "EDGE" and "edge". Even when it is on "EDGE", I sometimes do not have true data connectivity, as if I attempt to send service books they sometimes won't come through, e-mails will sit in my outbox with a cute little clock next to them, and the browser will time out while loading a page. However, most of the time I am on "EDGE" and I can send data just fine. Obviously, when I only have "edge" I can neither send nor receive data.
(2) When I do have "EDGE", I can send and receive BBM messages with absolutely no problem to people on my contact list that use the same BIS server as me (Europe). However, for those contacts that use the North American server, I can send, I get the "D" next to the checkmark, but I do not get an "R" when the message has been read, and I cannot receive any BBM messages from them, at all, ever.
Does anybody know how the BIS servers in different regions interact and where the problem might lie? Somehow, it seems that the North American BIS servers do not know that my device is registered on the European server, so they're not delivering my messages to the European server, to be sent to my device. However, the European server knows that my North American friend's devices are registered on the North American server. This explains why my messages would go through to them, and why I would get a "D, and it also explains why I would not get an "R" or any response from my friends (both of which require data to be transmitted back from their devices to mine). Another good indicator that this is an issue about servers interacting with each other is that in my first few days in West Africa, while I was still using my Fido service (and was hence still on the North American servers), everything was working perfectly.
Needless to say, the tech support for my carrier in West Africa haven't got a clue what's going on.
I have, of course, done a battery pull, sent service books, and for that matter even wiped the device. No luck. Ideas?
