BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
mzblues1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Sometimes it pays to go to the top. I just sent the following message to the Regional President (Philadelphia Tri-state Area) as follows. We'll see if I get any better of an answer from this, and then I'll let you know:

"I Really do like my BlackBerry Z10 phone's connectivity on Verizon's networks, but that doesn't mean that myself and others aren't willing to take less service with a different carrier to avoid dealing with the poor support that the company seems to have for your remaining Blackberry customers.

It's bad enough that the support for the physical phones have been non-existent at your stores and your selection is bare minimum, but not providing software updates on a timely basis is unacceptable, especially since you are already running a newer software update on the BlackBerry "Classic" that you have out for a while.

 

If you take a look on Verizon Wireless' Community Forums under BlackBerry you will see that I am certainly not alone with my issues.

Although occasionally one of your Reps will join the discussions, it is always one of their pre-scripted responses with a reference to a useless webpage, and goes something like this:

"I understand how important it is to have the latest software XXX_BBZ10! You are able to keep up with your phone updates here: http://spr.ly/6583AoO5  XXXXXXX_VZW"

The Customer Service Reps never goes the extra mile and speak with their Upper Management to find out who they need to talk to in your organization to get an answer to your customers so that they are not constantly in the dark about something as important as the functioning of their phones that are used daily in their lives.

Hopefully I won't once again get one of these responds to this and someone will do the work to get us an answer (even if they only get us a tentative ETA on the latest update at a minimum), and let us know what the hold up is about. Of cause it would be preferably an actual planned date which would be best and I am sure that this information is not only available somewhere's within your organization, but it is part of Verizon's BlackBerry Business Plan (as is with any company's segments).

Please let your current BlackBerry owners know which version to expect (hopefully the release will be the latest one available), when to expect it (or at least an estimated time-line) and what is holding it up?

Other carriers have had the update released months ago.

Thanks for helping to take us out of the dark regarding this matter.

Marty"

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
Snn5
Legend

Best wishes there.  Blackberry is not a money maker for Verizon outside government agencies and they have strict security standards regarding updates.  The private sector support for BB is expected to be nil.

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
mzblues1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hopefully the whole company doesn't express the same sentiments as Android users like you. Let's wait and see...

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
pherson
Champion - Level 1

Blackberry is going the way of the dodo bird, especially on verizon. I'm not sure 2hy or how this simply is not accepted. If that phone is so important swith carroers. It really is quite simple.

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
mzblues1
Enthusiast - Level 2

If that is their corporate decision, so be it. I understand that the "bottom line" is the bottom line in business. I get that. No one is telling them how to proceed with their future plans.

The problem is two issues:

1) Don't just let everyone hang waiting while every other company that carries BlackBerry phones has released the totally new / improved operating system a long time ago.

If that is your corporate decision, then have the Balls to come out and say it.

2) Since the phones were gotten through Verizon Wireless, it is their responsibility to support them until they either disappear from the existing customer base, or provide some form of compensation to aid BlackBerry users to get out of their current phones to either switch type of phone, or company that carries the one they walk.

It is not good business sense or publicity to just drop a customer base (what ever size they are), and say "Screw you. You are too small to be important to us." Finish what you started.

It was your corporate decision to carry BlackBerry phones, then it should be your corporate decision to support them. Then move on.

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
pherson
Champion - Level 1

The decision to support the phones is not verizon but blackberry. Blackberry provides software upgrades and support, and unless you purchase tech support they won't even assist you in troubleshooting. Your beef is with blackberry. The question is, how are YOU as a consumer going to handle it? Continue to sit and complain , or go to a carrier that blackberry has deemed it wants to try to do business with. Verizon really, as with any other carrier doesn't have to carry a certain brand, and in all honesty has no obligation to tell you WHY especially since things can get misinterpreted in this sue happy country. So if you don't like their blackberry stance, leave. Or switch to a different device. It's not that hard. It's rather easy. I'm a former blackberry user and do not have that need ever again.

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
mzblues1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Pherson,

I hear you and don't disagree with you that we do have a choice to switch or go. However, I do have to correct a few of your points:

"The decision to support the phones is not verizon but blackberry."

BlackBerry has supported their phones, have an available update finished and have distributed it to all the Carriers months ago. Most of the other Carriers have released that update to their customers.

It is Verizon who does their own testing on their network (which is good and needed), but often the hold up is their useless Blotware that they love to add to the operating system release. And in this case, since it is BlackBerry, it seems to be on their back burner to get that done.

"Blackberry provides software upgrades and support, and unless you purchase tech support they won't even assist you in troubleshooting."

If anyone is to blame for this, it would be Apple (BTW: I am a preferred Apple computer user. Just don't care for their phones).

As far as help goes, I have personally worked with BlackBerry Technical Support for weeks on some issues that I had and not only were they great to work with, but it didn't cost me a penny!

All you have to do is go through Verizon's Tech Support first, and after they tell you that they can't fix the issue (which is guaranteed to happen since they know nothing about BlackBerry's), they will connect you to BlackBerry and from there BlackBerry's Technical Support will work with you until it is either resolved or will let you know that the issue will be fixed in the following upgrade.

So I still don't think that my "whole" "beef is with blackberry".

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
pherson
Champion - Level 1

It actually is. When a verizon rep transfers you to blackberry support they have to enter in a code which gets you support for free. It's done for billing purposes. Most times you are transferred to get you off the phone, which I can't blame them for doing.

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Re: BlackBerry 10 Update - Letter to Robert M. Miller - Regional President:
mzblues1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Well, I got my answer from the top:

"We don't know." "It's proprietary information." "We do a lot of testing to make sure it doesn't negatively impact our Network." "Our last Blackberry update was end of 2014. It's not just Blackberry, we take the same time to do this type of testing also with Android and Apple phone's software updates."

When I mentioned that she was not correct and that Apple must have had at least 4 updates or more over the same period of time, she just said "Sorry, I don't have an answer for you."

So there you have it. No one knows (Not even the senior executives of Verizon). They seem to have much better security then even our Federal government or at least seem to keep a secret better.

What can I say, except what they are saying:

WAIT UNTIL WE DECIDE TO LET YOU KNOW IF AND WHEN WE PLAN TO RELEASE ANY VERSIONS OF UPDATES FOR YOUR BLACKBERRY PHONE. YOU CAN EXPECT US TO DO NOTHING MORE FOR YOU REGARDING THIS.

So for those of you posting anything about when you will get the 10.3 update, don't bother wasting your breath.

Or better yet, just get the update on your own as I probably will be doing shortly. Good luck.

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