Comments on: RIM Mulling Over Pre-Paid BlackBerry Service & Devices In Developing Nations?

By: Ronen Halevy

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:43:34 +0000

Oh dont get me wrong I get prepaid phones/SIM cards all the time when I travel to different countries and I wish I had the option to add BlackBerry data to them. On the other hand I can attest to the drug dealer part of my mention. I am sure there are a bunch of valid uses for a prepaid data plan but when I used to work in the Bronx the SideKick was the drugdealers phone of choice due to it being the only one available for prepaid users.

By: Luciano ES

Luciano ES — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:41:30 +0000

Wow, Ronen! You associate people who do not want to sign a contract and share their personal information with terrorists & drug dealers??? Eight years of Bush administration sure had a nasty effect on you.

RedNightHawk is absolutely right. Access to personal data has been abused left and right. Modern companies are the real crooks here.

By: RedNightHawk

RedNightHawk — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:57:14 +0000

“They also want to catch the segment that just does not want to sign a contract and share their personal information (terrorists & drug dealers???).”

Sadly, some of the above probably will be interested, but in Canada and the US there have been cases of people’s cellphone records being purchased and used for various reasons. An article by Newsweek (I think it was Newsweek) even bought the records of the privacy commisioner in Canada to make a point. A few months after the Chris Benoit murders/suicide a site even got it’s hands on text messages sent and recieved by his phone (not just to/from whom, but the actual text in the messages). Since many prepaid accounts can be activated online it would be useful for someone who wanted to guard their information by having it under a different name.

By: mariov

mariov — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:03:24 +0000

You can buy a pay as you go blackberry 8100 here in Chile for around US$300.

By: gsxrcon

gsxrcon — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:31:41 +0000

Wow, I would totally go for this. Love my BB and could do without the additional cell phone plan that I rarely use due to having a Company issued Nextel for all my voice and direct connect needs.