Blackberry Storm - Dodgy, Underhand Price Plans, BIS & BES Options

[jred55]

Hi, just wanted to make everyone aware of Vodafone's dodgy dealings with price plans. I've recently upgraded to a Storm; agreed a price plan (which included unlimited data); was told their was no problem with BES; and the device would be with me today.

Got really excited this morning when the device arrived; passed it through to my IT department to set up for BES and was asked to check the Enterprise Server was activated. Thus, I phoned up requesting they activate for BES and imagine my surprise when they stated 'sorry, this will cost you an extra £26 per month'.

Obviously got into a long drawn out conversation with account people and returns people stating that there is no mention of this and they are mis-selling on their web-site to state unlimited Blackberry Email. What they should be saying is unlimited BIS but not BES.

I have been a long-standing customer of theirs but the way I've been treated means I'm off to O2 and an iPhone.

Be warned.

[Jon_Vodafone]

Hi, just wanted to make everyone aware of Vodafone's dodgy dealings with price plans. I've recently upgraded to a Storm; agreed a price plan (which included unlimited data); was told their was no problem with BES; and the device would be with me today.

Got really excited this morning when the device arrived; passed it through to my IT department to set up for BES and was asked to check the Enterprise Server was activated. Thus, I phoned up requesting they activate for BES and imagine my surprise when they stated 'sorry, this will cost you an extra £26 per month'.

Obviously got into a long drawn out conversation with account people and returns people stating that there is no mention of this and they are mis-selling on their web-site to state unlimited Blackberry Email. What they should be saying is unlimited BIS but not BES.

I have been a long-standing customer of theirs but the way I've been treated means I'm off to O2 and an iPhone.

Be warned.

Hi jred55,

I'm sorry for the confusion this has caused you

We currently do not have any BES handsets or price-plans, but are hoping to have this available soon. I will see if we can get the information on our website made clearer, as I have a feeling you will not be the only of our customers caught out by this.

Jon

eForum Team

[jred55]

Jon, thanks for the prompt response. Funny - you're not the 1st person at VF today to say others will be caught out.

Okay, happy to accept it's an oversight but what really annoys me is the intransigence to do anything about it. I know what deals I can get from O2 for data (BES) plus calls; would have been happy to compromise (a bit); but at no time was any VF rep prepared to discuss.

I'm sure a temp agreement could have been reached until BES price plans are launched?

As I stated, happy to stay with VF; never been dissatisfied before; but disappointed customer service was nowhere to be seen.

cheers, Julian

[Jon_Vodafone]

Jon, thanks for the prompt response. Funny - you're not the 1st person at VF today to say others will be caught out.

Okay, happy to accept it's an oversight but what really annoys me is the intransigence to do anything about it. I know what deals I can get from O2 for data (BES) plus calls; would have been happy to compromise (a bit); but at no time was any VF rep prepared to discuss.

I'm sure a temp agreement could have been reached until BES price plans are launched?

As I stated, happy to stay with VF; never been dissatisfied before; but disappointed customer service was nowhere to be seen.

cheers, Julian

Hi again Julian,

I wish it were that simple - unfortunately the BES service books for the Storm are not quite ready yet, so even if we did sort out a temporary solution for you, chances are it still wouldn't work. Obviously we'd rather not take the chance just yet until we know everything is working 100% on that side.

In the meantime, does your Exchange Server offer Outlook Web Access? You could use the BIS account to temporarily link up to OWA for your emails, at least giving you some functionality until the BES offers come out.

Jon

eForum Team

[Callacrap]

It seems like there's been lots of confusion with everyone ATM

This post has been edited by Callacrap: Nov 17 2008, 09:07 PM

[jred55]

Jon, was thinking of doing this but would be worried at the cost of the price plans when published.

Considering the fact that the pricing quoted to me today effectively doubles my price plan (and I'm on one with a free Storm so not cheap either) I'm a little wary at 'waiting and seeing' as I could end up with an expensive plan.

We live in a competitive market and I can't justify this when compared to the deals at O2 and the iPhone.

As I understand, VF could have done something as technically they just need to 'flick a switch' or configure something on the network. Thus I believe this is more a cost vs. usage issue especially as the Technical Support staff were offering to set this up if I agreed to the additional monthly charge.

Was thinking of moving from a 'consumer' categorisation to 'business' but it all depends on the cost (again).

Thanks, Julian

[Jon_Vodafone]

Jon, was thinking of doing this but would be worried at the cost of the price plans when published.

Considering the fact that the pricing quoted to me today effectively doubles my price plan (and I'm on one with a free Storm so not cheap either) I'm a little wary at 'waiting and seeing' as I could end up with an expensive plan.

We live in a competitive market and I can't justify this when compared to the deals at O2 and the iPhone.

As I understand, VF could have done something as technically they just need to 'flick a switch' or configure something on the network. Thus I believe this is more a cost vs. usage issue especially as the Technical Support staff were offering to set this up if I agreed to the additional monthly charge.

Was thinking of moving from a 'consumer' categorisation to 'business' but it all depends on the cost (again).

Thanks, Julian

I totally understand where you're coming from Julian, I'd be thinking along the same lines too.

RIM charge us for every SIM card number registered on their network, and they charge us more for an Enterprise connection than for a Prosumer connection - this is why the cost suddenly jumps from £10 to £26 when moving to a BES handset. We were looking at ways to revise this, but I don't know how far along we are with that - if changes were going to be implemented now, I think the Storm would be the most sensible time to do it.

I'm in the dark as much as you are with regards to what the price-plans will be, and I understand that you'd be unable to to make a decision based on this lack of information. I think in your particular circumstances it might be sensible to return and cancel under the 14-day rule and then re-evaluate things once our BES devices are on the market.

Jon

eForum Team

[bigrob]

I think we are going to be in the same boat.

Got a Storm on 14 day eval today. Apparently VF have to change our business plan to so that we can use BIS for now (which will be done tomorrow).

At the moment we have mainly Nokia N95s (had lots of build quality problems with them as well). Anyway we run a free program called Emoze on them for push email.

If we like the Storm it's going to cost us either £10/month per handset to have BIS or £25.month to have BES so that we can use it with Blackberry Professional.

£25 per handset per month in this economic climate is something I doubt we will go for (unless after the 2 week eval we decided that the Storm was sliced bread).

[JohnMcL7]

Something to be careful with O2 and their BES tariffs is that the data limit is a lot lower than Vodafone - O2's unlimited business data pack only includes 200MB whereas Vodafone's BES includes 500MB. Additionally the O2 site doesn't list any options to go above 200MB whereas I believe Vodafone do charge a low per MB above 500MB.

I'm not that familiar with O2 nor are bashing them but just got caught out by this 200MB limit recently.

John

[tom_w]

I think we are going to be in the same boat.

Got a Storm on 14 day eval today. Apparently VF have to change our business plan to so that we can use BIS for now (which will be done tomorrow).

At the moment we have mainly Nokia N95s (had lots of build quality problems with them as well). Anyway we run a free program called Emoze on them for push email.

If we like the Storm it's going to cost us either £10/month per handset to have BIS or £25.month to have BES so that we can use it with Blackberry Professional.

£25 per handset per month in this economic climate is something I doubt we will go for (unless after the 2 week eval we decided that the Storm was sliced bread).

Yep, us too. I have already rambled at length on this subject in another post, but I'm another one who thought the 'Blackberry email' service that came with the tariff combined with a copy of the server software would be all I needed to get the full power of a BB solution. Only later did I realise the differences between BIS and BES, and that the Storms all come with BIS rather than the considerably more expensive BES that we actually need.

In my opinion this should have been much clearer on the storm site, nowhere on there are the differences between BIS and BES explained, and because the BES service isn't available yet you just see 'Blackberry email' and think that must be what you need.

This is supposed to be constructive criticism, VF just need to make the website clearer and to sort out what the BES tariffs are and get these on the site.

Hopefully the cost between BES and BIS won't be as great as VF are talking at present, we love the Storms, but the cost to get the full functionality is just too much.

[jayp0571]

I am a little confused here. I have email coming through on my Blackberry (connected to my POP3 ISP). This works fine.

In the next 2 months I plan on changing my settings because I am configuring a server for my company and it will have MS Small Business Server as well as the Blackberry Enterprise Software and a few CAL licences. Is this the problem that you are all describing? Are you saying that this will not work unless I pay a further £26 per month per handset?

Would appreciate feedback as without the ability to do this then the unit is useless to me - even if all the problems are fixed...

[bigrob]

Yes Jay you need to pay extra.

Have a look at the BB Professional if you need to many CALs.

Much cheaper, but not sure if it would offerr all the features you need.

You can download Professional that will work with one BB via blackberry.com

[Voe]

I am struggling to comprehend the stupidity of this situation.

My new SIM went live this morning and I too have now discovered that I can’t use this on my BES. This handset is an evaluation to see if we will move the entire corporate Blackberry fleet to Vodafone to keep the directors happy and get them new Storm toys.

The crazy thing is, I’ve been using one of our spare older Vodafone 3g SIM’s in the Storm while I waited for the new one to active, and the old one worked no problems at all, connected to the BES server, downloaded all the services book and the device looked and performed amazing. So what you are saying about service books not being ready I find really hard to believe....

I now have the problem of trying to explain to the directors of the company that it’s a complete waste of money going for the storm as they only provide them useless contracts that aren’t relevant to the business world that use BES.

Way to go on shooting yourself in the foot with the best device available for Blackberry...!

Above all that, I feel like I’ve been tricked into buying this without proper explanation of what it can and can’t do. I bought a blackberry on a business tariff with unlimited data. At no point did anyone mention that it would not connect to business servers...

[tom_w]

I am a little confused here. I have email coming through on my Blackberry (connected to my POP3 ISP). This works fine.

In the next 2 months I plan on changing my settings because I am configuring a server for my company and it will have MS Small Business Server as well as the Blackberry Enterprise Software and a few CAL licences. Is this the problem that you are all describing? Are you saying that this will not work unless I pay a further £26 per month per handset?

Would appreciate feedback as without the ability to do this then the unit is useless to me - even if all the problems are fixed...

Yep Jay, exactly that.

I had a long discussion with Jon about that here, were he filled me in all of the details of this:

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11068

I think the cost difference is actually £16/m as you no longer need the unlimited data and BIS parts of your tariff that cost £10/m

[tom_w]

I am struggling to comprehend the stupidity of this situation.

My new SIM went live this morning and I too have now discovered that I can’t use this on my BES. This handset is an evaluation to see if we will move the entire corporate Blackberry fleet to Vodafone to keep the directors happy and get them new Storm toys.

The crazy thing is, I’ve been using one of our spare older Vodafone 3g SIM’s in the Storm while I waited for the new one to active, and the old one worked no problems at all, connected to the BES server, downloaded all the services book and the device looked and performed amazing. So what you are saying about service books not being ready I find really hard to believe....

I now have the problem of trying to explain to the directors of the company that it’s a complete waste of money going for the storm as they only provide them useless contracts that aren’t relevant to the business world that use BES.

Way to go on shooting yourself in the foot with the best device available for Blackberry...!

Above all that, I feel like I’ve been tricked into buying this without proper explanation of what it can and can’t do. I bought a blackberry on a business tariff with unlimited data. At no point did anyone mention that it would not connect to business servers...

I completely agree.

My hope is that VF will realise they have royally ##### the BIS/BES explanation up and offer a BES upgrade to those affected for very little (or preferably nothing) extra... hope springs eternal..!

I'm waiting to see what the BES tariff situation is, if it's good we will stay, if not the whole lot goes back to VF (and I weep because I really want to keep my storm!)

[Matt_Vodafone]

Hi Voe,

Sorry to hear you have had a bad time with us to date, I am sure we can sort this out for you I have sent you an email; this will go to your registered account.

All you need to do is reply to the email and we’ll be in contact with you as soon as we can.

Thanks

Matt
eForum Team

[wilmot]

we'll be in contact with you as soon as we can.

Thanks

Matt
eForum Team

Can you please clarifiy if "soon" means more than 24 hours as I was asked to this yesterday morning and haven't heard a thing since. Thanks

[tom_w]

At no point did anyone mention that it would not connect to business servers...

Reading your post again I think that sentence completely sums up the whole sorry situation: If you buy a BB on a business tariff you would expect it to be able to do what a blackberry does, i.e. sync email, calendar and contacts!

[Jon_Vodafone]

Yep, us too. I have already rambled at length on this subject in another post, but I'm another one who thought the 'Blackberry email' service that came with the tariff combined with a copy of the server software would be all I needed to get the full power of a BB solution. Only later did I realise the differences between BIS and BES, and that the Storms all come with BIS rather than the considerably more expensive BES that we actually need.

In my opinion this should have been much clearer on the storm site, nowhere on there are the differences between BIS and BES explained, and because the BES service isn't available yet you just see 'Blackberry email' and think that must be what you need.

This is supposed to be constructive criticism, VF just need to make the website clearer and to sort out what the BES tariffs are and get these on the site.

Hopefully the cost between BES and BIS won't be as great as VF are talking at present, we love the Storms, but the cost to get the full functionality is just too much.

Hi Tom,

I have raised this exact point in light of the discussions around it, and it will be raised in a meeting for the online team later on today. Hopefully we can stop the confusion before it gets any worse.

I am a little confused here. I have email coming through on my Blackberry (connected to my POP3 ISP). This works fine.

In the next 2 months I plan on changing my settings because I am configuring a server for my company and it will have MS Small Business Server as well as the Blackberry Enterprise Software and a few CAL licences. Is this the problem that you are all describing? Are you saying that this will not work unless I pay a further £26 per month per handset?

Would appreciate feedback as without the ability to do this then the unit is useless to me - even if all the problems are fixed...

Hi jay,

You're right, that's the problem we're facing. RIM charge us more for an Enterprise connection than a BIS connection, and so we pass the cost increase on to our customers. It's usually £16 a month more expensive than the standard BIS service, but because the BIS costs are built-in to our new Storm-specific tariffs, it would be impossible for me to say exactly what the BES tariffs will look like.

I am struggling to comprehend the stupidity of this situation.

My new SIM went live this morning and I too have now discovered that I can’t use this on my BES. This handset is an evaluation to see if we will move the entire corporate Blackberry fleet to Vodafone to keep the directors happy and get them new Storm toys.

The crazy thing is, I’ve been using one of our spare older Vodafone 3g SIM’s in the Storm while I waited for the new one to active, and the old one worked no problems at all, connected to the BES server, downloaded all the services book and the device looked and performed amazing. So what you are saying about service books not being ready I find really hard to believe....

I now have the problem of trying to explain to the directors of the company that it’s a complete waste of money going for the storm as they only provide them useless contracts that aren’t relevant to the business world that use BES.

Way to go on shooting yourself in the foot with the best device available for Blackberry...!

Above all that, I feel like I’ve been tricked into buying this without proper explanation of what it can and can’t do. I bought a blackberry on a business tariff with unlimited data. At no point did anyone mention that it would not connect to business servers...

Hi Voe,

I'm really sorry about all this, and we are making amends to make sure other customers don't fall into the same situation.

I can't really comment on your BES SIM working fine in the Storm, as I don't have any concrete information on what the issues are. Either way, this was always planned to be a phased launch, starting with BIS and opening up to BES over the coming weeks - we've just missed the boat in terms of not effectively advertising WHICH variant of Blackberry we were selling!

Jon

eForum Team

[reel]

I can't really comment on your BES SIM working fine in the Storm, as I don't have any concrete information on what the issues are. Either way, this was always planned to be a phased launch, starting with BIS and opening up to BES over the coming weeks - we've just missed the boat in terms of not effectively advertising WHICH variant of Blackberry we were selling!

Jon

eForum Team

God forbid, maybe vodafone will actually tell us next time "Planned phased launch" dont make me laugh, it this was correct maybe people would have been told!!

Sorry but the launch of this phone has made the iphone launch look smooth