Data Share to iPad on Corporate BES?

**john10ne** · 11-10-2011, 04:33 PM

Hello,

I have a relative who currently has a Corporate BES plan on a Blackberry Torch 9800, through their her employer. She is able to make all changes the account herself.

She currently has 6GB of data on the plan and wants to add the $10 data sharing, so that she can use the 6GB bucket on an iPad.

According to a Rogers Corporate rep over the phone, she cannot do this because the iPad is not compatible with BES. The rep says that she must get the standalone $20 or $35 iPad data plans separately.

Does anybody know if it is possible to data share from her plan to an iPad? I am just hoping that the rep was wrong, or maybe there is some other way.

Help is appreciated.

[EDIT]:

ALL USERS: Please post your future responses to my question, into the Corporate Plans Sticky Thread shown at the top of this forum.

MODERATORS: You may close this thread if you wish. I tried to do so myself, but I see no possible way.

**BellVictim** · 11-10-2011, 04:54 PM

Better to post this in the stickied 'corp-plans' thread, I wager, since sometimes out-of-place posts garner quite an incineration.

(It sounds like the sort of question that may have been already answered too, if you want to search and can bear the annoying search feature.)

**john10ne** · 11-10-2011, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by BellVictim

Better to post this in the stickied 'corp-plans' thread, I wager, since sometimes out-of-place posts garner quite an incineration.

(It sounds like the sort of question that may have been already answered too, if you want to search and can bear the annoying search feature.)

I tried to do a search using the search feature, as well as Google. Maybe it's just me, but I'm unable to find what I am looking for.

I did what you said, and I have posted my question from post #1 into the Corporate Plans Sticky Thread.

ALL USERS: Please post your future responses to my question, into the Corporate Plans Sticky Thread shown at the top of this forum.

MODERATORS: You may close this thread if you wish. I tried to do so myself, but I see no possible way.

**veechee** · 12-20-2011, 02:19 PM

I can confirm that data sharing between BES plans and and iPad is possible. I just succeeded in doing it, but it was quite painful to get it going.
Requirements:
1. You must be on a shareable BES plan. As of this writing there are two options: "BlackBerry (BES) Data Share 1 GB" for $45.00 and "BlackBerry (BES) Data Share 4 GB" for $65.00. Aside: These seem to change often because a few months ago when I switched onto the 1 GB ones for my phones, there were 3 GB and 5 GB options instead of 4 GB.
2. You must have Rogers postpaid microSIMs for your iPads. The microSIMs you get sent if you buy from the online Apple store will NOT work (they say pre-activated on them). Go to a Rogers store and ask for an iPhone 4 microSIM and this is what you need. They normally charge $10 each but I actually had a Rogers store give me two for free for two iPads I was looking to activate.
3. Call in and ask to have your iPad added to your plan using the "Data Share Add-On 10" plan. It costs $10.00+GRRF per month since you own the device.

Now, as I often find to be the case with Rogers, the experience to get it going was quite frustrating, but I did eventually succeed:
- The first rep I called to get this done questioned whether a BES plan could support iPad, but I convinced her it was possible but then she informed me I had the wrong microSIMs so the process had to stop. Off to the store I went to get new microSIMs...
- The second rep I phoned was certain that sharing an iPad with a "restricted" BES plan was impossible. She said a BES plan has restrictions in place, although she couldn't describe to me how with any technical detail. I attempted to explain to her that a BES plan actually has less restrictions than any other plan, since it has access to additional APNs and Service Books versus a BIS plan or a regular smartphone data plan. No go. She put me on hold for over 30 minutes while she queried the "BlackBerry Support" and "iPad Support" departments and they apparently confirmed for her that what I was asking was indeed impossible. I expressed my extreme frustration and doubt that her or her colleagues were correct and ended the call to try another day. Oh yeah - here's a real gem - when I asked what device I could share if it couldn't be an iPad, she suggested I could share a PlayBook! I could pay $10 per month to share a device with no 3G data! WOAH!
- A Monday morning call to Business customer service got me a rep that agreed right away with my assessment that what I had indeed qualified for the $10 data sharing with an iPad. It took quite a while to get each one activated, but he did get it done. I thanked him for his assistance after and only at that time mentioned my experience from the day before. He said that he was pretty sure it worked, but did call in to one of the data support departments (BlackBerry or iPad - I forget which) to confirm before proceeding. Then he said no matter what, it was certainly easy to cancel if it didn't work anyway. It's great to get someone with a CAN DO attitude!

I just reiterated this in another thread: Rogers has so many highly specific call-centre departments that everyone knows a lot about very, very little. Rarely can the first person I call into handle what I need done, and more often than I care to recall, not only numerous transfers have been necessary, but numerous calls in. I've found it little different on the Consumer versus the Business side too. Some reps that are more broadly trained would further my experience with Rogers immensely.

Further note about the shareable data: You are likely paying $45.00 now for 500 MB or 1 GB that is non-shareable, so even if you don't have iPads now, I would switch anyone you can in your company to the shareable version so that it's there when you need it. It also seems that the shareable versions pool among phones on the same account, because I have three BES phones on my account and when I made this change last summer (each to the 1 GB plan) checking my data usage on my handset showed a total out of 3 GB instead of 1 GB.

**john10ne** · 12-21-2011, 02:29 PM

Hi Veechee,

Thanks, I appreciate your help. The plan on the account is 6GB data for $45 I believe. Most likely it's not sharable, so it would have to be changed over to a different plan. I suppose we could call in and ask to change over to the 6GB LTE sharable plan for BES and add data share for $10. I don't know if that would work or if that plan is still available.