I hope that this will show up in google and help someone else in my situation. If this has helped you, please bump the thread with an acknowledgement to keep it active and visible.
Brief summary of problem and resolution :
- For the last few months I have been unable to access bbc iplayer streaming content on my Bold 9700, even though their pages tell me that it is a supported device and that Vodafone is a supported network on 3G. When I navigate to a page that should have the link to the streaming content, the link is replaced with text that says "Please switch to wifi to play this programme".
- It turns out that the issue, for me at least, is that in OS6, the browser uses a blackberry APN , and this, it seems, cannot be changed to the vodafone one.
- To workaround this, from your phone, first go to live.vodafone.com or myweb.360.com , and then search in the search box for "bbc iplayer", then go to the site through the link you find. Then the streaming content seems to work.
Background :
I have spent in the region of 8 hours in total on the phone to support about this explaining the issue. No-one knew what the cause of the issue could be and I was advised many times to repeat the same steps again and again. Eventually I downgraded my OS to 5 and tried again. I noted that if I used the vodafone live 'app' to get in to the browser then everything worked fine. So then I tested changing the browser settings between internet / vodafone live, and I found that I could only stream from bbc iplayer when using the vodafone one. Note that these browser settings no longer exist in OS 6.
In addition I have checked the IP of my device from each version on OS 5 and also before and after going to the vodafone site in the browser on OS 6 and I have found that when things don't work my IP appears to be in the 93.186.XXX.XXX range (owned by RIM) and when things do (after visiting the vodafone site or using the 'vodafone browser' from OS 5) the IPs I have are in the 212.183.XXX.XXX range, and are owned by vodafone (interestingly the IP detection site also said it detected a possible proxy in these cases).
I am interested to know why support were not aware of the cause of this issue, or, when I had explained it to them, why they were not able to suggest the workaround above that I have discovered. It should be simple : "SItes can block / change content based on IP, bbc website does this for some other providers, you are on a blackberry on OS 6 so your IP will be a blackberry one, perhaps the issue relates to this, oh I recall I was trained that using the vodafone live sites will change what your IP appears to be to a vodafone one, why don't you try that Mr Tharg?". In fairness though I should say that apart from issues stemming from what I believe to be a lack of training, the 2nd line staff were very professional and helped in every way that they could.
Apologies for possible terseness in the above text; I am still annoyed at having had to do all the work on this.
