A Yankee needs an Eastern European Blackberry

June 10, 2009 6:18 AM

How can I (an American) get a Blackberry with an Eastern European number with unlimited data.

My company is going to have a new employee working in Eastern Europe. I have been tasked with getting him a Blackberry. Due to the nature of his work we would like to get him a Blackberry with a phone number local to him. This would be Slovakia, Czech Republic, or Austria. I have no idea on how to go about this. I have asked this individual to look at plans, but all he finds are plans with limited data, and prepaid options. Not being versed in European cell phone customs, is this the norm?

Do you have any similar experience that would be applicable and could help?

What do other people/companies do in similar situations?

posted by ps6000 to Technology (1 answer total)

Unlimited data plans seem to be avilable in most countries in Europe. I say this without specific experience of the countries you have listed.

One slightly out of the box option which has worked for me in many countries (but only works with BES not BIS) is to register an unlocked blackberry device to your BES provider using a US sim and then replace the sim with a local sim with data activation. When you switch it on now the BES should recognise the device PIN and push email.

This has worked for me in the UK and India using a BES subscription with intermedia.net.

I hope this helps.
posted by london302 at 7:15 AM on June 10, 2009