web design

Problems With Telus Blackberry Curve Software? Downgrade!

I've had a Blackberry Curve for 13 months now and my experience with Blackberry's products have been unreliable. In 13 months I have gone through 3 different Blackberry Curves, one of which ran out of warranty a week after my initial one year warranty was up (even though I received a refurbished one month earlier).

Anyway that was all by the book, though it's been a horrible experience since everyone I know has had to replace their Blackberry's.

One of the issues I have had with my Blackberry's was the GPS. The issue was not really with Blackberry but with Telus as Telus places limits on what you can do with your phone. For instance, Telus limits the GPS settings your phone will allow you to use yet sells the phone as a GPS device.

My first Blackberry, the GPS worked pretty good on it. Then Telus told me to upgrade my firmware, big mistake. That's when things really went downhill and my GPS stopped working. Telus assured me it was an issue with the GPS chip but had no fix for it however they suggestedI use the Telus Navigator and it would work fine. Ironic isn't it? So I installed the Telus Navigator and it did surprisingly work.
The reason I would find out later is that Telus blocks a certain port on your phone and reserves it for the Telus Navigator system. This port is the same one GPS uses to communicate with your GPS applications like Blackberry Maps.

I really wanted to use my phone for GPS purposes and tracking but that idea went out the window unless I modified my phones settings which would void the warranty. Not wanting to do that, I downgraded the software on my Telus Blackberry Curve to 4.5.0.77 from the latest version. All of a sudden everything started working. GPS worked, and even the Facebook application for Blackberry started to work fully.

Since the downgrade, my GPS on Blackberry Maps and Google Maps works great. Then the phone calls started and my friends Facebook profile photos were showing up with their caller ID! So when my sister would call, her Facebook profile photo would show up on caller id. Events I subscribed too on Facebook were also being synchronized with my Blackberry's calendar as well as reminders of my friends Birthdays!

I was amazed that by downgrading my Blackberry software, everything started working! So, if you are having any problems with your Telus Blackberry and are using either 4.5.0.138 (I tried this one too and it was the same problems) or 4.5.0.160, then downgrade to 4.5.0.77 and everything will magically start working, even GPS!

So far I have not discovered any issues with the old software.

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