Verizon BlackBerry update
I had the pleasure of having lunch with Patrick Kimball of Verizon yesterday to discuss the state of the world according to Verizon. It was a pleasant meeting as always and I enjoy visiting with Patrick whenever I can. Our conversation covered a lot of ground, a lot of which I can't share but some significant topics which I can.
You may recall the BlackBerry 8830 issue I have mentioned before where Verizon disabled the integrated GPS that RIM put in the device. Patrick responded to that initial lament but that didn't go very far to ease the grief that 8830 owners feel without their GPS. I addressed this with Patrick and while I don't agree totally with Verizon's stance I do understand it a bit better.
Verizon makes contracts with OEMs to deliver handsets for branding on their network and the 8830 was no exceptoin. Verizon stipulated a number of performance, security and privacy requirements for the 8830 and RIM did not deliver as specified. Because of this Verizon released the phone with the GPS totally disabled, and believe me they do understand consumer's (and enterprise's) frustration. For this reason Verizon will be issuing a firmware upgrade in the next few months that will enable the GPS to work not only with their own VZNavigator service but with some third party programs as well.
Repeat after me, Verizon will be issuing a firmware upgrade in the next few months that will enable the GPS to work not only with their own VZNavigator service but with some third party programs as well. This is great news for me and all the other 8830 owners out there and I appreciate Patrick sharing that with us.
Other exciting news from Verizon, the entire national EV-DO network is now Rev A upgraded. This is very cool but even more exciting is that by this time next year the entire southern region (a huge area) will be EV-DO covered. Anywhere you can make a call on the Verizon network will also have EV-DO coverage. Now that's impressive and yes, I can hear you now.
I'm all tickled pink that everything is Rev. A, but the next two pdaphones coming out from Verizon that run wm6 pro(i760 and 6800) will not have Rev. A out of the box. The 760 according to reports will never have it and the 6800 will be upgradeable. For the sammy i730 owners like myself who like to upgrade as soon as our NE2 comes up early have had to wait and are still waiting for these devices to come out. Theres my little rant on Verizon.
They do have the best coverage in my area, so I must suffer through.
Posted by: Sixftunda | August 23, 2007 at 06:49 AM
I'm in the process of leaving Verizon. Yes, their coverage is the best- but the service is terrible and they're expensive. I don't even want to get started on their choice of phones, but now that they are not picking up the Vogue in their next round of phones I'm out.
Posted by: Sal Cangeloso | August 23, 2007 at 08:24 AM
I too just left Verizon. I was one who wanted GPS on my BB and waited forever to get it and got a continual run a around from Verizon. it's still a few months out? jeez. How tough can this be? I just switched to ATT using the BB 8800 and telenav and couldn't be happier.
Posted by: JC | August 23, 2007 at 09:26 AM
That's fantastic news about the GPS feature.
Posted by: anon | August 23, 2007 at 12:39 PM
It's Verizon, I'll believe it when I see it.
I am still waiting for the XV6800 to be released. And have been since December 2006. By the time VZW releases the 6800 I'll be waiting the Kaiser, which AT&T just might release BEFORE VZW released the 6800!!
But I am stuck in a contract and the extended fam ily is all VZW (free calls!).
Posted by: Darren | August 23, 2007 at 04:19 PM
I'll believe it when they actually release the firmware. Hopefully before End Of Year.
Posted by: Lola | August 30, 2007 at 11:12 AM
well it's been a few months and no release of any new firmware, looks like Kimball may have been giving you a spin story.
Posted by: Glenn | October 15, 2007 at 12:50 PM
In 5 days it will be 3 monts. Where is the firmware?
Posted by: Carmen | November 18, 2007 at 07:51 PM
So, now that the firmware is out that lets VZ Navigator to work, how come GPS in Live Search or GMaps still doesn't work?
Posted by: Matthew | November 21, 2007 at 11:58 AM
It would appear that even with the latest firmware, the GPS in the 8830 is still not available to 3rd party software like Google maps. They need to fix this!
Posted by: Jason Gurtz | May 22, 2008 at 02:53 PM
Who's Patrick Kimball? Grant it with the high turnover rate within the telecom industry he could very well have moved on to another provider, but I was curious when I saw the name and could not find him in our corporate directory.
Posted by: VZ Guy | August 06, 2008 at 12:44 AM