Phone compatibility

[Mamabear45]

UPDATE

Wow, the community is AMAZING! Thanks so much to all of you for your help.  After reading all the replies I tried out a sim card I had for lucky mobile and the blackberry works fine so far after their customer service line told me it was not compatible. I have not tried data but it is for a kid and only needed for phone calls anyway. I think public mobile community seems to know best.  Where can I buy a public mobile SIM and how much do they cost?

ORIGINAL MESSAGE

I am looking to connect an old BlackBerry phone and when I checked the model number this is what I got. It says it is 3g compatible but not 4g or LTE which I figured since it's not new. But can someone please tell me of this means my phone is compatible or not?

[darlicious]

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@Mamabear45 wrote:

Thanks very much for your help. I think from my goigle search and a phone call to lucky mobile the blackberry may not be HSPA compatible. Wikipedia says it's compatible with HSDPA. I dont know the difference but looks like I may have to buy a new phone. The phone used to be with koodo though which like public mobile is owned by telus, are their networks different? Too bad since it's just for my kid. Any suggestions on where I might find a cheap second hand non smartphone that is compatible with public? Cheapest I found anywhere is $70 new but we dont need a brand new 2019 phone just to make phone calls.

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@Mamabear45  If the purpose of the phone is just to make calls/text then you will have no problem using this model of phone. The incompatibility issue is with data not being able to work.

[sheytoon]

These days you can consider HSDPA and HSPA to be equivalent in the context of shopping for a phone.

Here's the history if anyone is interested. HSDPA was the first enhancement to downlink data speeds compared to basic 3G (R99 UMTS). Similarly, there is an uplink enhancement (HSUPA), and finally HSPA+, which has higher modulation at 64QAM, MIMO, and dual carrier capability.

If you're looking for specs on a phone, refer to this link for more info: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/LTE-network-fundamentals/m-p/134356#M5822...

LTE specs are optional for faster data. 3G specs are mandatory.

[GinYVR]

@Mamabear45Public, Koodo and Telus all uses the same network. Lucky Mobile belongs to Bell but they also use the same network out West.

If it use the work with Koodo before, it should work with Public. Why not put in your Public Mobile SIM card to verify?

[Mamabear45]

Thanks very much for your help. I think from my goigle search and a phone call to lucky mobile the blackberry may not be HSPA compatible. Wikipedia says it's compatible with HSDPA. I dont know the difference but looks like I may have to buy a new phone. The phone used to be with koodo though which like public mobile is owned by telus, are their networks different? Too bad since it's just for my kid. Any suggestions on where I might find a cheap second hand non smartphone that is compatible with public? Cheapest I found anywhere is $70 new but we dont need a brand new 2019 phone just to make phone calls.

[srlawren]

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@will13am wrote:

@Mamabear45 , your phone is compatible for use with Public Mobile.  However, your data connection will only be on the 3G network.  You will not be able to make a LTE connection.  Crucially, all phone calls are on the 3G network and so the loss of LTE compatibility will mean very little.  

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@aneeshbansal wrote:

It will be okay, public mobile does go on 3g anyway.

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@aneeshbansal, @will13am :  the caveat is as @computergeek541 pointed out:  if this BlackBerry is running BB7 or older, then it will get no data whatsoever from Public Mobile.  Why?  Legacy BackBerry OS prior to BB10 (yes they skipped 8 and 9) relied on either a BIS (BlackBerry Internet Services) or BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Services) server to use mobile data.  This made sense at the time, because in the late 90's and early 2000's, data was super slow and very expensive! So, they added BIS/BES to do data compression (as well as encryption on BES, maybe on BIS too) for efficiency.  However, all newer (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile (RIP), BB10 (RIP), PalmOS (RIP), etc) devices just directly connect to data without the use of such intermediary servers.  Public Mobile does not operate a BIS server, so unless you happen to work for a company that still operates a BES and they give you acces to it, a BB7 or older device will get no data.

[aneeshbansal]

It will be okay, public mobile does go on 3g anyway.

[computergeek541 · Accepted solution]

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@Mamabear45 wrote:

Hi I am looking to connect an old BlackBerry phone and when I checked the model number this is what I got. It says it is 3g compatible but not 4g or LTE which I figured since it's not new. But can someone please tell me of this means my phone is compatible or not?

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If that information provided by the compatibility checker is accurate, yes your Blackberry will at Public Mobile.  However, if it's running a Blackberry operating system that isn't Blackberry 10 or Android, the data services won't work.  This is because Blackberry BIS and BES services are not available at Public Mobile.

@Alan_K , from the screenshot in this thread, I still can't help but notice from the screenshot in this thread, that the compatibility tool still makes no mention that the customer must have 3g compatibility to be able to make or receive phone calls.  Every once in a while, a customer uses that tool to check compatiblity, gets the go-ahead from the compatiblity site based on LTE even though the device isn't compatible with the HSPA network. Then, such a such a customer comes to Community wondering why voice services don't work.

[will13am]

@Mamabear45 , your phone is compatible for use with Public Mobile.  However, your data connection will only be on the 3G network.  You will not be able to make a LTE connection.  Crucially, all phone calls are on the 3G network and so the loss of LTE compatibility will mean very little.