It’s the most wonderful tiiime of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard that before. For this month, that doesn’t seem to be the case. RIM has seemed to epically fail once again. Three times in one month and two times in one week, their services has shut down and CrackBerry BlackBerry users are in disgust; and Tuesday’s outage once again affected all U.S carriers as well as our next door neighbors in Canada as well. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m a fool. The third time, I don’t know anymore. BlackBerry BES/BIS users have been widely affected this whole  year with outages from RIM’s servers. The one thing that is supposed to work and have vital reliability for heavy Enterprise users, is starting to show a pattern is making people everywhere wonder, “Should I keep this”? Here is what RIM had to say about the outage:

A service interruption occurred Tuesday that affected BlackBerry customers in the Americas. Message delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service and SMS services on BlackBerry smartphones were unaffected. Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service.

RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14th to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue. RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.

Yes, it’s understandable that RIM has gone from just being a corporate brand to becoming a household name, but you have to admit that they should have expected this with the release of the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 that regular consumers would start to enter the BlackBerry realm. Eventually I think RIM will figure it out, until then, pray that this doesn’t happen on New Years Eve.

(Update) We’ve gotten sporadic reports today that BlackBerry service — possibly just BIS — has been down for at least a period today, which would amazingly mark the fourth time a serious outage has occurred in RIM’s fortress in just the past several weeks. That’s bad for any device, but it’s particularly tragic for a platform that has staked its reputation on reliability. What’s everyone seeing out there right now? RIM, when will you learn?

Source: Engadget Mobile

With the holiday season approaching fast, we at Smartphone Nation thought it would only be right to make a holiday gift guide to help you choose the perfect the gift. There have been many great phone launches this year; however, a few stuck out as superior. We have though of all major carriers when writing this review, so make sure to take carriers into consideration when making your choice.

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Canadians can finally stop envying those Verizon users with the Storm2 because now it is officially available and on sale today. The BlackBerry Storm2 9550 will cost $199.99 on a 3 year term or $599.99 for a no term price. Unfortunately, this isn’t an HSPA device so there’s no unlocking for Rogers/Fido 3G. Now the real question is will the current Storm users give up their phones and purchase the new Storm2? I know I definitely would.

So… RIM… Where’s the Bell love? No Storm2 for them?

[TELUS BlackBerry Storm2 9550]

I can’t say I’m not surprised, but I am excited. Why am I excited you ask? It’s because the Motorola “Milestone” isn’t CDMA. Yes, its not CDMA!! It’s a full GSM with North American 3G bands! (850/1900MHz) So this means that not only TELUS will make a load of cash… well, yes it does mean that, because now Canadian and American users can purchase the Motorola Milestone and use it on their AT&T/Rogers etc… carrier (that’s of course after the phones been unlocked).

So there’s no exact date that’s been set but rumors are that TELUS will release the phone “early 2010″ (assuming that means Q1 of 2010) and the phone will be “TELUS exclusive” meaning no other carrier will carry this phone. No pricing as of yet but stay tuned.

[Source via Boy Genius Report]

I seem to find it weird that Rogers gets the BlackBerry 9700 before AT&T but Verizon gets the Storm2 before TELUS. Either way, both countries will be getting both phones and for that note. We’d just like to point out that TELUS will officially be getting the BlackBerry Storm2 9550. No dates (but my guess is sometime before Christmas) or information on the product yet and TELUS hasn’t even posted this information on their site for some reason, but at least we know that RIM isn’t leaving their fellow Canadians hangin’

[Source Via BlackPhoto.com]

With the new HSPA launch happening in November. More cellphone companies take a look at different carriers. We heard earlier about the BlackBerry 9700 and 8530 showing up on Bell’s system but an iPhone? Complete shock to me. The Globe And Mail reports that the iPhone will be available for Bell and TELUS carriers for their upcoming HSPA network set to release in November before the holidays.

Bell Canada and Telus Corp. will begin selling the iPhone next month, breaking the stranglehold on the device that their rival Rogers Communications Inc. has held for more than a year.

Both carriers hope the addition of Apple Inc.’s groundbreaking smart phone to their lineups will help them sign up higher-value customers and shift the balance of power in Canada’s mobile market.

Neither Bell nor Telus would confirm that they would add the iPhone to their lineups. Apple also declined to comment. But people familiar with the matter said the two carriers will announce a working partnership with Apple as early as Tuesday or Wednesday and begin selling the device in time for the launch of their new network next month

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Today customers trying to buy the BlackBerry Storm from TELUS.com have encountered an odd error. Once they try to add the phone to their shopping cart, they come across a box that tells them that the device is no longer available and that the “discontinued item” will be removed from their shopping cart. This could just be a minor error in the web department, or it could mean that the BlackBerry Storm 2 is on its way to TELUS in the near future.

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Microsoft recently announced the availability of “Windows phones” (AKA Windows Mobile 6.5 phones). Starting on October 6th, these phones will be available on carriers all over the world including AT&T, Bell, Sprint, TELUS, and Verizon. These phones are from various manufacturers including HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba. Windows Mobile 6.5 introduced a new OS that has a lot of new features. The user interface has been redesigned to be more touch friendly and make everything easier to use. It will also have a new version of Internet Explorer that will be much improved.

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The long anticipated phone that Telus has been anxious to release has finally came. Well, on July 15th that is. The Blackberry Tour is a 3G world phone with a 3.2 megapixel camera, like the Bold and 8900 combined. The Blackberry Tour 9630 will be sold at $249.99 on a 3-year term.

We haven’t heard anything from Bell as of yet but when I walked by a bell store in Le Carrefour Laval a few days ago, I noticed the Blackberry Tour sign up on the window, so that means something

The latest iPhone rumor to hit the Internet says that Telus will be acquiring the rights to the iPhone in October of this year. This information comes from RileyFreeman over at HowardForums, who is typically a reliable source of Telus news. He says this information comes directly from an executive at the phone company. The iPhone 3GS will be launching with Telus’ HSPA network. It is important to mention that Telus runs a CDMA network so if this rumor is true, Telus will be the first CDMA network to launch the iPhone.

[Via BGR]