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I don't visit this forum much, but this become a very popular FAQ on certain Blackberry forums, so I am posting a copy of it here, with all UBB coding intact:

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The Hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server Thread
aka "How To Get Access To HTML/telnet/AIM/ICQ/MSN/chatting from a Blackberry without buying BES"

Target Audience:
...You are using a Blackberry on the GSM/GPRS or CDMA network?
...Need AIM / ICQ / MSN Instant Messaging on a Blackberry?
...Or need telnet/SSH access to your home Linux system?
...Want better web access on a Blackberry?
...Get 100+ MB email space, breaking the 10 MB barrier?

[Original: Feb 13th, 2004]
[Edited: June 2nd, 2004]

...As an individual or self-employed person, you just bought a Blackberry all on your own. You LOVE it for its email! Now you want to install other applications for HTML/telnet/ssh/chat/AIM/ICQ/MSN/etc. You want to install the stuff you heard about including Idokorro, Reqwireless, Webmessenger, and all the great tools you see on the Internet. But they don't work! You are frustrated that it's not possible because of something called "MDS". You're a person who's willing to pay a few tens of dollars extra per month just to get access to the extra goodies. But you are shocked it costs almost a thousand dollars just to buy server software that enables all the nifty extra features you were hoping to use on a Blackberry. You're now tempted by other mobile devices such as TREO, Sidekick, Hiptop, smartphones, etc... but you then notice none seem to do email as good as Blackberry can!

Target audience

• Self employed indivudals.
• Individual users who just want to use a Blackberry to its fullest potential.
• Small corporations
• Deaf users who need the best wireless communicator
• People who want to bypass a slow BWC email server

Blackberry Attraction? What's The Big Deal?

First-time readers may be wondering what the hoopla is about. Blackberry phones have such good thumb keyboards and very good reliability. Email on Blackberry is generally vastly superior to everything else including other cellphones, other smartphones, PocketPC, PalmOS handhelds. Some invidual non-business users are starting to buy Blackberry because they really love its email; even if not as good for things like videogames. While not the Blackberry keyboard is much lauded to have an extremely good feel allowing some people to type as fast as 70 words per minute on a device that is smaller than a wallet. If Blackberry is so great for email, why shouldn't I also run other Internet applications on it like I can do on a PalmOS and PocketPC? An interesting piece of Blackberry history is that USA goverment prevented a USA company from shutting down the Blackberry network with a lawsuit [WashingtonPost.com link] -- despite that Blackberry is a Canadian technology. This is surprising, considering relations between USA and Canada since 9/11 -- it does underscore how good and addictive Blackberries are. According to news articles, Blackberries were deployed throughout the federal government shortly after 9/11 and the anthrax evacuations, to improve communiations during crisis.

Why Is MDS Required?

MDS means Mobile Data Services, which is explained on this web page at Research In Motion. The simplest english to the layman is that MDS essentially makes full Internet access possible on your Blackberry. Without access to MDS, it is almost as if you are behind "The Great Firewall" that blocks all ports except for email and WAP, limiting your ability to use your Blackberry. Most Blackberries do not have true GSM/GPRS Internet access at this time, and Internet access must be piped through MDS. The original market for Blackberries are corporations, and this is why a server solution is marketed. A medium and larger size corporation generally has no problem getting a Blackberry Enterprise Server solution set up, However, these days, the Blackberry market is diversifying and there are now more and more individual and self-employed users of Blackberries, and do not need all of BES features. A variant of MDS is called MDG, which stands for Multimedia Data Gateway. An MDG is essentially a public MDS server. As of the time of this writing, only Nextel provides a free MDG with their service.

How do I get MDS?

If you're a big enough corporation, it's not a problem. You just need to buy a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). However, they are generally too expensive for sole individuals because they start at $995 for a 5-user license. Some discounts can be found through a reseller, but this still burns a huge hole in an individual's pocket. Not to mention, you will need a dedicated Internet connection at your home to run BES at home. Sometimes, a small group of people are so desparate that they have pooled their money and actually purchased BES to share amongst themselves. Today, now an easier option has cropped up: a hosting service! Just like buying inexpensive web hosting instead of having an expensive T1/T3 to your home, you can finally now get BES hosting today. Surprise! Preliminary checks on pricing like a very manageable monthly fee that's actually is less than an average telephone or cable bill.

Oh No, Not Another Monthly Fee!

Unfortunately, it's a lot more appealing for individuals and self-employed consultants than paying several hundreds of dollars and running a dedicated server at home. Blackberries are like Crackberries - they are the most addictive wireless Internet devices around - and you'll pay a premium to get the best mobile Internet experience.

I only need email and don't care about MDS.

True, most people only need the great email feature of Blackberry and is happy to stick with it. But some of us want to be able to chat on instant messaging networks such as AIM, ICQ, and MSN. Others of us want remote access to our home computer for retrieving files, or want SSH access to their own Linux box. Some of us are gladly willing to pay tens of dollars extra per month to gain access to such features, but the service provider won't provide the feature.

I can just use NexTel Instead, they give me full Blackberry Internet access.

Great, if you're one of the lucky ones! Nextel Blackberries are known to have full access to the Internet. Nextel is great if you are in one of their great coverage areas. However, not everybody of us are in their good coverage areas and some of us need a Blackberry that can roam. For example, there is now GSM/GPRS coverage in Canada driving along inter-city highways between major Canadian cities, with certain providers in Canada. Other people want to still be able to receive email while travelling aboard. However, if you are one of the lucky ones who can benefit fully from Nextel, please reward their support for TCP/IP by signing up for their service and seeing if their coverage is good. For the rest of us, we can't easily benefit from Nextel's forward thinking of including MDG with their product (MDG = public MDS = TCP/IP stack equivalent). Telus in Canada now provides MDG service on their 75XX series Blackberry, just like Nextel.

I heard my carrier is going to provide a public MDS/MDG service for free.

Another carrier called Telus in Canada is now already including MDG service with their newly introduced Blackberries. Various rumors have occasionally surfaced throughout the Internet about carrier plans to deploy public MDG services. Another carrier following the NexTel approach of a public Multimedia Data Gateway (MDG). There are supposedly plans by some carriers to introduce MDG service, which would make a BES/MDS hosting service unnecessary for using Blackberry Internet applications. One example is that current rumors as of Spring 2004 indicates Rogers Canada is going to deploy MDG service at the same time as the Rogers Blackberry Handheld OS 4.0 release sometime in 4Q 2004. This is only a rumor. Several internal Rogers sources actually point to internal plans to eventually MDG, including one of Mark Rejhon's friends who works at Rogers. The question is when, if these plans become a reality. Even with a public MDG, there are still the advantages of bigger email space and potential better performance using a separate BES/MDS hosting service. In the meantime, most hosting services are month-by-month, so you can cancel once your carrier provides MDG service. To help accelerate your carrier's deployment of MDG, call your carrier's Blackberry department and request support for MDG similiar to Nextel. As an example, tell your carrier about WebMessenger instant messaging, and how it will improve Blackberry sales if users could easily install Internet applications on Blackberry. Point your carrier's support department to this thread, to help educate even more people at the carrier understand the need for MDG.

Is MDS/MDG Specific To Blackberries?

Not quite. All modern cellphones with access to the Internet, require a gateway of some kind, whether it is MDS, MDG, GGSN (APN), etc. In simple terms, they essentially make connections possible between a carrier network and an external network, such as the Internet on your mobile device (or even just a simple connection to a BES server). If you have heard of GGSN (APN) on a cellphone, then that's a network component similiar to MDG. More information about various gateway services is provided on this SourceO2 page and on this Motorola iDEN page. Only MDS is Blackberry specific, while MDG and GGSN (APN) is not Blackberry specific. In fact, MDS still uses MDG in order to connect between a Blackberry and a BES server, and then from there, mobile Internet connections are made through your company's Internet connection. Credit given to a forum member (Deefer) who recently gave an excellent explanation that made this paragraph possible.

Finding Cheap Access To MDS

A cheaper way of getting access to MDS for individuals. Individual self-employed people like me can't always justify paying $595 or $995 for a Blackberry Enterprise Server just to get access to web, chat, IM, telnet/ssh and other utilities that require MDS There is huge demand out there by self-employed individuals (like me) who want their Blackberry to be able to do full HTML, telnet/ssh, AIM/ICQ/MSN messaging, and other sysadmin utilities, perhaps to connect to their home computer, etc. People like me are willing to pay an additional monthly fee to gain access to additional applications such as instant messaging and being able to do HTML web browsing with color graphics. As long as it is not a large one-time fee such as $595 or $995, considering that a few Blackberry carriers and most non-Blackberry carriers already include full Internet service at no extra charge.

Blackberry Internet Applications For Consumers/Prosumers:

• WebMessenger
  AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo Instant Messenger. Trillian-style all-in-one client! The most popular software program listed here. (Cost: Subscription at $4 per month paid annually at $4
  
• Reqwireless Web Viewer
  Professional version of full color HTML browser. Beginning with Blackberry OS 3.7.1.x and later, images downloads and renders very noticeably faster in Reqwireless (>50% faster) than images in the RIM Blackberry Web Browser, with the same image quality level. Reqwireless also has a Hotmail client available (HotViewer) and an Email attachment viewer. (Cost: $29.95 one-time; free trial)
  
• Idokorro Mobile SSH
  Telnet/SSH utility, can be used for remotely logging onto Linux. Works with VT100 including PINE, EMACS, IRC, etc. Can also be used to access telnet BBS systems, routers, servers, old-style chat systems, MUD's, any UNIX systems, remote MacOS Darwin shell, MCI Wireless IP-Relay for the deaf, etc. Unlimited number of hosts, which is good for casual use. Expensive for the non-corporate user (Cost: one-time $199; free trial)
  
• BlackChat ICQ for Blackberry
  This is a free ICQ client for Blackberry. It is an open source program, listed on this SourceForge page and the source code CVS is available. This source code can even be improved to include other chat networks if you are a knowledgeable developer, or even recycled by computer programmer to create new Blackberry Internet applications such as IRC. Everyone here needs more Blackberry Internet app developers! If you just want the software only, you can download the installable client. (Cost: free)
  
• Lormar Logic Wireless TTY
  A realtime wireless TTY (text telephone) service for the deaf that requires MDS. Lormar Logic also provides other semi-realtime TTY services using WAP and AIM that does not require MDS. They also sell BES/MDS hosting to the deaf as well. (Cost: Varies)

Sources of hosted BES:

• Mailstreet.com
  This seems to be the most popular choice. I use this, and it works with all Blackberry apps I've tried. They are a hosted Exchange server provider with a Blackberry Enterprise Server option. $23 per month total costs, it is reportedly possible to get access to BES/MDS.
  
• eOutlook
  This service is cheaper, and some people have mixed reports about this. About $12 per month. Some say they work with MDS, but does not support wireless synchronization. Reportedly slow technical support and may not be as reliable as Mailstreet.
  
• Lanlogic
  They now provide BES Hosting. About $25 per month. This is an old favourite among some corporations, as they have been around since 1995.
  
• MI8 Corporation
  They cater to bigger groups, supposed to support MDS. Need to contact them for a price quote, normally cater to at least 10 people but reportedly catered to a single individual.
  
• Lormar Logic Corporation
  Their new DeafBES service is the cheapest at only $39.95 per year (only $3.32 per month) but caters only to deaf individuals. Lormar Logic (lormarlogic.com) is a deaf services company familiar to many gadget-saavy deaf individuals. They provide many different wireless TTY services for the deaf, including their new Blackberry TTY Service. You must send in your Blackberry to be activated on their BES. (Note for everyone else: TTY is a text telephone device frequently used by the deaf)

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Thanks,
Mark Rejhon
www.marky.com

This FAQ was created under interesting circumstances. It came out of a situation where I was a RIM950 user (old Blackberry) for a very long time. I was running AIM and ICQ chat software called WebMessenger on the old RIM950. I had a new 5810 Blackberry phone lying around unused collecting dust for 1.5 years, because it would not work with WebMessenger because I needed Blackberry Enterprise Server.

It was only when Hosted BES/MDS became possible, that I immediately ditched my 950 and am now happily using a 7280.

It was this frustration (a 5810 that I purchased, but never used for 1.5 years) that I decided to write this FAQ to rescue other people from the same dilemma that I went through. I even tried to switch to a TREO, Tungsten, Hiptop, Sidekick -- but they weren't nearly as good as Blackberry for email, for example!

__________________
Thanks,
Mark Rejhon
www.marky.com

I just wanted to add. T-Mobile appears very popular on this particular forum. T-Mobile is supposed to likely follow suit in providing a free MDG service sometime in late 2004, with the version 4.0 release of all the carrier softwares (i.e. BWC 4.0, Blackberry OS 4.0, etc). Although this may be a rumor, the rumor is very widespread now, some people in RIM talked about this potential of more widespread MDG, and carriers have internal plans (for example, Rogers Canada appears to have plans to deploy MDG -- equivalent of a so-called "TCP/IP stack" to permit generic Internet applications on any Blackberry)

But until then, it is necessary to get a hosting service if you want to be able to run things like WebMessenger, BlackChat, Idokorro, etc, with a T-Mobile. Just so you know!

__________________
Thanks,
Mark Rejhon
www.marky.com

Urgent question

I am moving onto the BB from a treo 600 tomorrow. I am going with Cingular/ ATT.
My question is:

1)What do i need todo to:

A) Sync/ push my work email (Lotus) on it?
B) Sync /push my personal email -pop3-on it?
C)Use msn and yahoo chat/ and do browsing

I mean does what we pay the carriers for the data pay for the BES and MDS services?

2)My corporate IT department charges $35 every month for providing BES/MDS and for pushing my work email / calenders etc to the BB. Do i still need this?

3)Which public MDS/BES server is the best? If i sign up for one of these, will i NOT need to pay my corporate IT deptt to get my work email and calender on my BB?

thanks a lot in advance

For Treo600, you need to go with Good Technology. RIM/BES/MDS will not work -- you need to go with Good Technology.

Or see if you can push Palm Inc. for the BlackBerry client for Treo600 -- are you able to gain access to that software?

__________________
Thanks,
Mark Rejhon
www.marky.com

A. To use the mail service without a hosted Blackberry service you have two choices that are provided by your wireless carrier. You can use the BB Web Client or Desktop Redirector.

Web Client Pros: You can set up multiple personal email accounts. You can check email via http. Using Web Client will allow you to receive attachments.

Web Client Cons: Web Client has storage limits that vary from provider to provider and once full, will stop forwarding mail to your BB device. Mail can take up to 15 minutes or more to be delivered to your device.

The second alternative is Redirector.

Pros: Redirector is generally faster in delivering mail to your BB device.

Cons: Redirector will not forward attachments to your BB device. I requires you to have your desktop computer logged in and running at all times. You can only forward one email account.



You pay for the wireless data/voice connectivity of your hand held device. Wireless service must be activated on the handheld in order to receive data.



No. (What a rip!)



I have heard good things about Mailstreet and eOutlook. There is a problem using these hosted MDS/BES services if you receive corporate mail through your company. The domain of your company mail would have to point to the hosted BES's servers. For example, if you worked for IBM and had an email address of joe@ibm.com, then the ibm.com domain would have to point to the 3rd parties hosting servers. I'm sure your company would not be willing to do that. Services like these are best suited for the individuals and/or self employeed that do not have coporate mail servers. You may be better off just paying the $35 per month to your IT department for the service unless you are going to branch out on your own.

I believe that the information I have provided is accurate. However, I've not had any experiance with a 3rd party hosting service and only used the Redirector and Web Client options for a short time. So if anyone knows differently, pleaes don't hesitate to correct my mistakes. I wasted no time in getting my company to allow me to install a BES server in our network. Ultimately, using BES is the only way to use your BB device to it's maximum potential. The second best is obviously using BES through a 3rd party. As for Web Client and Redirector, you'll just have to try either and decide which suits you best.

Good luck.

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Ascii stupid question, get a stupid Ansi.

There's no arguement that Rim has our hands tied when it comes to buying a BES/MDS server.... well until recently that is.

There are options. The company that I work for has developed a product called 'Rubus' that allows you to write Blackberry applications that communicate to your server without using a BES/MDS server. Its rather unique.. and no one else offers this.

there is a bit of install on your server (not much), open up a couple of ports on your firewall.. and your set to go.

We wrote RubusCMD (aka telnet) here in shop as well as an email solution. Currently we are looking into a TTY solution also.

Its interesting ... an alternative to consider for those average folks not wanting to invest in a BES/MDS server.

Anyway.. its sort of a sales pitch.. but it looked like this forum was the place to do it as everyone seems to be asking..

The website is www.bayalink.com if you want to check it out.. or email info@bayalink.com

later
Kevin

__________________
Kevin Dixon
Kevin@bayalink.com

Thanks for the information. Please keep up posted on your progress.

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Ascii stupid question, get a stupid Ansi.

Just an update on the eoutlook.com side. I have used them for about 9 months and I am very happy with them. They were the best deal in town for a long time. 8.95 for a mail box and 6 for the BB access BES/MDS. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end.

As of 11/1/2004, due to what they claim is increased cost of doing business by their parent company, they have changed their pricing structure. Now, in order to be an eoutlook.com subscriber, you must have 3 mailboxes. Even if you only use 1 you have to pay for 3. Plus BB BES/MDS. So now the monthly fee is in the mid $30 range for me as a single user.

This is definately more than I want to pay, but the other services are not that much cheaper, plus to switch I would have to change my e-mail with everyone ( a pin in the neck), plus pay a BB activation charge. So although I really don't want to pay $400/year for BES/MDS hosting, they have me by the short ones and I am not going to be switching. I had a complete hard drive failure earlier in the year and my most recent backups at the time were corrupt. Unfortunately, I lost a lot. The great thing is that because I have my outlook hosted by eoutlook.com, everythign was backed up on their servers. Obviously my calendar and contact was synced to my BlackBerry, but things like my journal entries, etc... were not. If it were not for hosted Exchange, I would have lost all of that too. So when I look at $400/year, it is a small price to pay to have an extra level of backup.

Incidentally, their service has been great and I have not had any waits for technical support, etc. Eric is fantastic and always replies quickly and efficiently.

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Is that your convergence device in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?