Curious Cat

Testing tumblr from my blackberry - nice! I might just start spamming your feed with random pictures of my everyday life now. Or not.. maybe I’ll just use twitter for those kinds of inanities.

[Picture sent from my sister via bbm :)]

PS. Julienne is my real name, if you didn’t know

Blackberry Messenger in Hong Kong

After poring over forums for weeks now, I haven’t really found very helpful posts about how to get BBM in Hong Kong using an existing Blackberry handset. So I’ll write about it here in the hopes that I’ll be of actual help for anyone with the same problem, to avoid the hassles of trial and error (of going to different shops of various service providers here like I did). And God knows the latter is excruciating in a language barrier context.

So let’s keep this short and sweet: Don’t buy a Three (3) Mobile Prepaid Sim Card (this is what I did). They won’t let you get a Blackberry Data Plan without buying a handset as well. It took me three weeks to figure this out, after three trips to the 3 Mobile Shop. I was resisting looking into other service providers (PCCW, China Mobile, etc.) because I didn’t want to change my number - I had like two packs of business card with that number in the contact details, it would be so annoying to have to keep writing a different one on all of them or to print new ones altogether. 

Yesterday, finally, I found out from a friend that he was able to get a Blackberry Data Plan by purchasing a China Mobile Postpaid Sim Card. I went to the China Mobile shop at Mongkok and had the best transaction of my life. Everything I wanted and more was given to me! I could even keep my former 3 Mobile digits even if I was transferring service provider. I was not expecting this at all, I didn’t realize it was event possible! And at apparently no extra cost!

I don’t want to sell China Mobile prematurely as I have yet to receive a billing statement from them (I heard they charge unnecessarily for some things, so I’m bracing myself for that), but so far I’m very happy with their service.

Oh, and finally, you need an HKID to sign a 1-year contract for the BB service. Otherwise, there will be a several hundred dollars penalty for discontinuing the service.

In figures:

HKD$68 monthly cost for unlimited local email and instant messaging (bbm)

HKD$35 monthly cost for voice calls and text messaging

HKD$103 Total.

The total of HKD$103 was what I paid at the shop, after signing the contract and getting my sim card etc. in order. Not bad at all.

Hope this helps!

xx,

21ABE797