Seems Blackberry is involved in a nasty patent dispute and the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal. There are rumours of this service being shut down or made a bit more cumbersome to use with additional software.

I'm wondering what alternatives you guys are using and how good they are in the trenches (mongering destinations).

My T-Mobile Blackberry has functioned quite well in Colombia, Phils, LOS, and Indonesia -- i.e. instantaneous access to emails and ability to respond to emails from the bars, apartments, airports, etc. The charge is reasonable $15 for Megabite and the service is highly reliable.

Any recommendations or thoughts on competitors such as PALM TREO etc.

i have a t-mobile blackberry here in california.

did you take yours to a t-mobile store to unlock it?

(Message edited by wahoolee on January 26, 2006)

No need to unlock it, your blackberry works without it. But you should sign up for the worldwide roaming and when you get to your destination, you need to manual search for a network signal under Options Menu.