How To Configure Blackberry to Communicate with FastMail

The following instructions describe how to configure a Blackberry to connect to your FastMail account.

There is one prerequisite. A Blackberry utilizes the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) to provide email/data services to the phones. Typically, a Blackberry user will sign up for a data plan when they acquire the phone. This is includes BIS.

To configure BIS to connect to FastMail, you need to configure the BIS plan.

This can be performed in 2 locations.

1. Use the phone itself, Choose the Icon called Setup, then Email Setup
2. Go to the appropriate provider’s website to configure.

Some providers are listed here:

• Alltel: http://www.alltel.blackberry.com/
• AT&T: http://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=mycingular
• Nextel / Sprint: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=nextel
• Rogers: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=rogers
• Telus: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=telus
• T-Mobile (U.K): http://www.instantemail.t-mobile.co.uk/
• T-Mobile (U.S): https://my.t-mobile.com/Login/Default.aspx
• Verizon: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=vzw

During initial phone setup, you may have been provided with a userid/password to the BIS site. If not, you can register for one. You’ll need some information from the phone (the PIN and MEID can be found usually in the phone’s status page).

In general, it is easier to setup the service using the website than using the phone, but either will work.

Once logged in:

1. Choose “I want to create or add an email address”
2. Enter your FastMail userid and password (twice)
3. The system will autoconfigure most everything.
4. You should receive a confirmation message that the account has been
   established.
5. Unfortunately, BIS will sometimes choose the wrong email server
   name.
6. Once you have saved the account. Edit the account, go to the
   Advanced settings, type in mail.messagingengine.com as the mail
   server.

Note, it will typically take BIS 20 minutes to start delivery of email to your device. In addition, the device will typically only show the last 30 days of email in the Blackberry Inbox.

The latest BIS improvements will should automatically save your sent email directly into your SentItems folder inside your FastMail account.

The following shows two screen shots from the Blackberry website demonstrating the proper configuration.