www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telstra today announced that one of Australia’s most popular smartphones, the BlackBerry® Bold™, would be accredited with Telstra’s Blue Tick which recommends devices for handheld use in metro, rural and regional areas.

Telstra Country Wide, Group Managing Director, Brett Riley, said existing BlackBerry Bold owners could upgrade software on their handsets from today while new customers can purchase out-of-the-box Blue Tick-ready devices from early August.

“The BlackBerry Bold is one of Australia’s favourite smartphones. Now business people in regional areas can combine the benefits of wider coverage on the Next G™ network with the added functionality of a smartphone. Customers will be able to stay connected to their work and personal lives with real-time access to email, calendar, contacts and the web in more places across Australia,” Mr Riley said.

“Business users will enjoy the benefits of always-on email and the ability to view and edit email attachments like Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on the go. This enables users to recover time that would otherwise be lost. For instance a recent study found BlackBerry users can recover up to an hour of downtime a day or up to 250 hours per year1 .”

Telstra Product Management, Executive Director, Ross Fielding, said Telstra worked with Research In Motion (RIM) to develop a software upgrade that boosted the device’s coverage performance.

“We are really pleased to be able to boost the handheld coverage performance of this device. The BlackBerry Bold is everything customers love about the BlackBerry email experience super-charged by the speeds, extensive national 3G coverage and unique services available over Telstra’s Next G™ network,” Mr Fielding said.

“It combines all the features you need to stay productive between meetings and when you are on the go including mobile email, organiser, web browser, a 2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS for maps and directions and ten-and-a-half hours talk time. It also boasts a thin design and a full QWERTY keyboard which is perfect for power emailing,” he said.

How to upgrade:
New customers can visit their local Telstra store or dealer from early August to pick up a BlackBerry Bold with Blue Tick software preinstalled.
Existing BlackBerry Individual Server (BIS) customers can upgrade the software on their device by connecting it to their PC, launching their BlackBerry Desktop Manager (version 4.6 or higher) and downloading the update from www.telstra.com/blackberry/software . The download from BlackBerry is around 100MB. BIS customers can contact Telstra on 132200 for technical support.
Existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) customers should contact their corporate IT administrator.

Pricing
The BlackBerry Bold has a recommended retail price of $1,199 and is available on various plans to suit enterprise and business customers’ needs, including an $80 Business Phone Plan with $0 upfront for customers connecting for 24 months.