How Blackberry Phones Connect to the Internet

If you live in Zimbabwe and have owned a blackberry phone chances are you have faced the frustration of trying to connect to the internet.A visit to the your local Blackberry guru is usually necessary. There he will hack your phone outfit you with opera mini and whatsapp and send you on your way. Why wont blackberry phones work straight out of the box?.It all has to do with how they connect to the internet

Looking at the above diagram an ordinary phone will send data to the nearest signal tower at stage 1 .
The tower then sends your data to your service provider's Headquaters (Telecel,NetOne or Econet) at stage 2. Your service provider's  headquarters then forwards the data to the internet. Returning data also follows the same path.
 
For blackberry Handsets the process is a little different .  The service provider at stage 2 (Telecel,NetOne or Econet) has to have a special connection to stage 3 . Stage 3 consists of Blackberry computer servers in Canada. This means Whether you live in South Africa or South London all blackberry phones MUST first connect to Blackberry computer servers in Canada before they can access the internet. Currently in Zimbabwe no service provider has that special connection to  stage 3 , hence the error messages when you try to connect.