I have been a Blackberry user for almost 6 years now. One thing I liked with BB is the BIS subscription. The 30-day BIS is superb and unmatched by any other smartphone data plan category.  This is one of the compelling reasons why I stay with Blackberry.

In my present BIS, my apps like Facebook, YM, Twitter, Wechat, Whatsapp, Viber are always on. I have no worry on my data usage. And for as long as their is a provider signal, I am always guaranteed Blackberry service. Ain’t that great?

BB10

And here comes the BB10. SO much hoopla on it and I was almost taken in by its features. But as the issue on data plan starts to hit early users of BB10s, I have to review my “upgrade” plans and be realistic. Realistic means that if BB10 is no longer BIS, but local data plan (from local provider)  then it is no different compared to iPhone and Androids when it comes to guzzling your data plan.
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I have lost appetite over upgrading to BB10 because of the shift to data plan. If the rumors are true that eventually, BIS will be phased out even for non-BB10, then I think I go for the Droidz if I upgrade my phone.

And so I think that BB10 will be responsible for the loss of sizable BB users, like me. I do feel cheated over the idea that my data usage is “consumable”. And if I make mistake of keeping my FB and Twitter on, my supposedly 30-days subscription will finished in just a week.

I’ll stay with my 9900 with BIS. Happy for now.

 

UPDATE: July 22, 2013

Bad news. I discovered last weekend that my provider MTN Nigeria has quietly applied data plan to BIS. I was doing BB Hotspot and my extra credit/load of 3000 naira disappeared. And after that, my BB services like BBM, push mails and apps were disabled, even when there is EDGE.  I loaded 500 naira, and the services were restored.

That means that my BIS was consumable if I used bandwidth heavy activities like BB Hotspotting. I wonder if having FB 24×7 will also wipeout my credit. Sent an email to MTN for clarification because I have not received any notifications about any changes to the BIS subscription. This is thievery.