A little Blackberry® help.

Keith Lane

Keith Lane

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Feb 25, 2005
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Conyers, Georgia
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Keith Lane
So...
Our company policy has always been such that you are required to have your cell phone on at all times when you are on the road so that your manager(s) can interrupt your otherwise productive day for "status updates" and such.
The problem has always been that though this is a "requirement" they do not pay one cent of my phone bill. I have an old Treo I got from e-bay for $40 and I'm on Verizon. I don't have a data plan cause I'm cheap and don't see the need for an extra $30/month expense. I wouldn't mind having a data plan but.....
Well, now they are offering me a Blackberry with a data plan, but because some idiot in another office sent 2200 sms messages in a month at $0.15/message, SMS is now blocked on company Blackberrys. I know, I know, it's stupid to even have such a plan w/ AT&T, but there it is. SMS is a pretty important component in my telecom world and I can just refuse the new phone, or carry two phones (ugh). They will not pay for the data plan for a personal phone but want me to be able to get e-mail when traveling.


So here is my question. Is there a way that using the internet portion of the data plan I can get and send
SMS messages on a Blackberry thereby making an end run around the insane policy of no SMS on company Blackberries?
I know less than nothing about Blackberries BTW.
Thanks.
 
Yes, but a bit of a kluge. There are email to sms gateways.

And for bb to bb messages, there is PIN messaging

via Tapatalk
 
If everybody you are texting with is with your company and they are all on company blackberries as well, then you have blackberry messenger which runs over the same data as the email does. Doesn't even touch the SMS. As previously mentioned their is also the PIN to PIN. But again, those are only if everybody you text is running on blackberry as well.
 
No, everybody is definitely not on Blackberries. In fact almost none are.
I've only been offered one because I'm traveling soo much. I tend to keep in touch w/ family via SMS more than voice.
I wonder if Google Voice has a solution?
 
My rule of thumb on this has always been that I pay for my own stuff and use it how I want to use it.

If the company ever gets weird and has odd rules, they pay for it 100% and I carry two phones.

Different companies have gone both ways. It's very cultural and/or they're under legal regulations to do specific things with company data. One was smart and just authorized a maximum amount they'd reimburse each month and my plans are always higher than those, so I just "augmented" my bill with their partial reimbursement every month.

Current company will probably fall under HIPAA rules next year. They'll be buying me a phone if they have to cut off company e-mail to my personal device(s) or they won't NE able to e-mail me after-hours. Period. I won't even check it via the laptop.

I'm mobile these days, if they can't put e-mail in my pocket, I only read it at the office or if someone *calls* me to get online.

Texting is mostly personal. It will always stay on my personally owned device. If the company wants to text, they pay for it or provide the gear. I don't do text messaging for work unless they require it and provide the means to do it. (Unless I choose to send one from my personal phone. Inbound company texts are inappropriate if I'm paying for them.)

Reimbursement paperwork is a pain. I tell bosses to just put it on my salary and I'll handle the phone bill and usage. Some agree. Some need something on the company books. It's very fluid between employers.

I'd much rather just pay the bill on my own device(es) than lose an hour a month every month of my life to messing with breaking out personal/business calls, etc.

If any carrier would figure out how to do two phone numbers on one device with separate billing, I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. Here's your bill, and I paid mine.
 
I carry two separate smartphones. The company is a blackberry; mine is a droid x. I keep them separate because I don't want to hassle about what I do. You could forward your company number to your personal phone and only risk the occasional call from work. You could also route them all through google voice but you would only get them if you log onto google voice.
 
Keith Lane said:
I wonder if Google Voice has a solution?
Click to expand...

You can get a google voice number. Sending and receiving texts is free.

Google Voice has a Blackbery App.

I don't think it integrates with the blackberry message folders, so its kind of klunky.
 
denverpilot said:
...
If any carrier would figure out how to do two phone numbers on one device with separate billing, I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. Here's your bill, and I paid mine.
Click to expand...

There is no technical reason why that could not be done. Such phones were available in the US in the early days (Called Dual NAM in those days, and Dual SIM now). Not offering such service is a matter of policy with the carriers. Some in foreign countries don't have such hangups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_SIM

Dave
 
TedR3 said:
You can get a google voice number. Sending and receiving texts is free.

Google Voice has a Blackbery App.

I don't think it integrates with the blackberry message folders, so its kind of klunky.
Click to expand...

I already use Google Voice for my voicemail and such. I even text from my pc at times. I do conditional call forwarding from my personal cell number to my GV number. I just wonder if I can "cheat the powers that be in our IT department who told AT&T to block ann SMS on our phones by texting through the browser and still have it "reasonably" easy to use.
 
I personally think it's going to be a pain, Keith. Unless someone pops up with a nice Blackberry App that helps it along. Sorry to say.

But, you might find that others can pretty easily switch over to using e-mail to reach you, since that's the Blackberry's forte'.

As far as dual-NAM, I was aware of that when I posted. It's not a technical limitation, by a long shot.

Phone numbers are just "addresses" for routing calls to these days. Putting ten of them on any cell phone would be easy. Good ol' SS7... keepin' the calls flowin' to those translation numbers where they need to go. ;)

Keith, I think you should tell 'em you want an iPhone. Crackberry is so 1990s!! ;) ;) ;) Heh heh. Tell 'em it makes you as excited as this...

4b94241c-0586-036d.jpg
 
I refuse to carry two telephones. But, I don't work for an anal company that cares what we do with our work phones either. I use one Iphone for everything, personal and business.
 
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