Explain the magic behinbd a Blackb erry

August 30, 2006 8:32 AM

Why is my wife's Blackberry able to get the Net and do email when we are not in a wi fi area?

My daughter's laptop does not work when we are travelling unless we hit a wi fi zone, and yet my wife's Blackberry (given to her from her job) connects to the internet and can do email. How does Blackberry manage that? The answer is simple, I imagine. But not for me.

posted by Postroad to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Blackberries use cell phone signals, they don't need wifi.
posted by Lame_username at 8:33 AM on August 30, 2006

To be fair, the BB uses "big GPRS" signals, which cellphones don't typically use either (unless they're doing a lot of data work, like the BB does)
posted by thanotopsis at 8:34 AM on August 30, 2006

To put it in perspective, before Blackberries and other integrated devices, people would have to use a regular PDA and cellular modem (and a cellphone) to achieve the same functionality.

It's basically just the miniaturization of several technologies into one device.
posted by cowbellemoo at 8:40 AM on August 30, 2006

As an aside, you can buy cards from the cell phone company. They look similar to the wifi cards, but they use the cellular band and can work wherever you get signal from the cell company.
posted by kookywon at 9:03 AM on August 30, 2006

cards?
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:28 AM on August 30, 2006

prepaid airtime cards.
posted by raedyn at 9:50 AM on August 30, 2006

To be fair, the BB uses "big GPRS" signals,

I assumed someone who didn't distinguish between wifi and blackberry wasn't ready for a breakdown of GPRS, HSDPA, WCDMA and the like. ;)

prepaid airtime cards

I'm pretty sure that cowbellemoo was talking about broadband access cards like this one from Verizon. Every cell company has their own method to provide data transmission at moderate speed for your laptop.
posted by Lame_username at 10:08 AM on August 30, 2006

Lame_username : broadband access cards like this one from Verizon.

My boss recently got one of those so she could connect to her desktop while on the road. It's pretty good, with decent speed.
posted by Shecky at 10:39 AM on August 30, 2006

For background, before moving to cellphone data protocols, Blackberry actually used to use an older mobile data technology. I think it was the BellAtlantic owned moblenet two-way paging network. I think the wireless Palm (VII?) used the same infrastructure.
posted by Good Brain at 11:23 AM on August 30, 2006

For background, before moving to cellphone data protocols, Blackberry actually used to use an older mobile data technology.

DataTAC and Mobitex. The 5810 was the first GPRS 'berry, IIRC.
posted by mendel at 11:31 AM on August 30, 2006

My boss recently got one of those so she could connect to her desktop while on the road. It's pretty good, with decent speed.

Take a good long look at the coverage map for these cards, however, as you'll find that the PC card will do two things pretty quickly: 1) run up your bill as you roam out of the coverage area and 2) depress you with the lack of speed over regular wifi (particularly when you've got a spotty connection).
posted by thanotopsis at 11:45 AM on August 30, 2006