The Bold without BIS Guide

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Step 1: Set up your wireless network (wifi) connection.

Step 2: Set the APN for your carrier.

If you want to use a regular data plan on your carrier’s network, you will need to enter the APN settings. Here are the instructions. A visual tutorial is here, but you must enter your carrier’s specific settings, rather than those in the tutorial. You can probably find the settings here: World Wide Mobile Phone Settings

Step 3: Install apps that work without BIS.

Many BlackBerry OS apps were designed to work only with a connection to BlackBerry’s servers.

Without a BIS connection to those servers, you will not be able to use many of BlackBerry’s built-in applications, including:

the BlackBerry email client
BlackBerry Messenger
MMS (Picture) messaging
the BlackBerry podcasts app

The BlackBerry web browser works over wifi, but it may or may not work over the cellular network, depending on your provider. You will be able to make phone calls and send SMS (text-only) messages.

Some carriers will push you the MMS service books and you'll be able to send picture messages. Others won't. Ask yours if they will enable MMS for you. If not, see the MMS (Basic) page for a simple workaround. See the MMS (Advanced) page for a complex solution for advanced users.

Note for users of Koodo Prepaid in Canada: you can just set your APN using the directions above, and then follow the instructions on this page to enable MMS messaging and get the browser working over cellular data. This still works in 2021 and may work for Koodo postpaid as well.

For everyone else, as long as your carrier still has 3G service, you can install many apps that work well using wifi or a regular data plan, without BIS, and which serve the same or similar functions as the BlackBerry apps.

Here are the essentials:

App Store: BlackBerry World remains open, but all of the paid apps have been removed. Many of the apps that remain are time-limited or feature-restricted trial versions. Some users have had difficulties with BlackBerry World of late. See this thread at CrackBerry for a solution. Quick Apps (OTA) is a convenient repository of links to OS 7.1 compatible software that is already freely available on the web. Most of the software mentioned below can be installed from within the app.
Email: Using the Bold for email is not recommended. LogicMail 2.2.0.85 (OTA, BBW) still works, but see the Security Warning. AstraSync is a paid activesync client. The website is still online, but I don't know if the service still works. NotifySync appears to have shut down, PicoMail appears to be dead, and Smartmail no longer works with SSL.
Web Browser: Opera Mini 8.0 (OTA, BBW) at m.opera.com. Alternatively, you can install the Anworm service books to get the built-in browser working over a data connection. See the browser page for more information. UC Browser (BBW, OTA) has been taken offline.
Messengers: There are two cross-platform messengers that still work in 2021: Hookt (BBW, OTA, Website) and 2go (BBW, OTA, Website). Trillian, IM+, IM+ Pro, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Viber, and LINE have all gone to the graveyard of instant messengers.
Maps: MGMAPS has offline capabilities and still works with Windows Live Maps as of July 2021: MGMaps - View maps from various sources on your mobile phone! There are also a number of other maps apps listed on the Working and Dead Apps page. I haven't personally tested them. Google Maps (3.0, OTA) (3.0, Alternate Download) (4.5.3, OTA) no longer works, even with the installation workaround.
Podcasts: Podtrapper 2.6.7 (BBW, OTA) (See the apps page for a free registration code, provided by the developer). The app still functions in 2021. To add unencrypted podcast feeds, see the instructions on the apps page.
Music: TuneIn Radio 2.3 (BBW, OTA) and Nobex Radio 3.7.2 (BBW) are both working in 2020. There are additional options on the Working and Dead Apps page.
eBook Readers: Kindle 1.0.2.101740313 Beta (OTA) See this thread. MobiPocket (.zip). Both are working in 2020.
RSS Feed Reader: Opera Mini 8.0 (BBW, OTA). Working in 2020.
Forum Readers: CB Forums 1.0 (BBW) is working in 2020; Tapatalk 1.4.7.9 (OTA) is no longer capable of adding new accounts.
VOIP: Join SIP Client (BBW) and Dell Voice 1.0.1 (Canada / Fongo) (Available at BlackBerry World through a hidden link: see this thread). Both apps still work in 2020.
News: NewsZ (OTA) is an installable web app for reading Google News RSS Feeds. Action Retro's 68k.news is another great option.
Facebook: Facebook (BBW - web browser shortcut). Facebook used to work over a cellular data connection if you installed the Anworm service books. I don't know if it works at all anymore. The login page seems to render in Opera Mini (but see the note below). [1]
Twitter: Twitter no longer works as of August 2019 (via the apps or the web). The Twitter API now requires TLS 1.2, which the Bold does not support. You might be able to login via Opera Mini.[1]
Browser shortcuts. I have created installable browser shortcuts for Facebook (Facebook Mobile) and Gmail. You can use these on a WiFi connection immediately. If you install the Anworm service books for the browser, you will also be able to use them over cellular data. I don't have Facebook or Gmail, so I don't know if they work anymore. If all else fails, you might try accessing them through Opera Mini.[1]

*BBW: BlackBerry World *OTA: Over-the-Air

BlackBerry World apps are installed using the BlackBerry World app on the phone.

The OTA apps are available via websites. For OTA apps, use a browser to search for and navigate to the download links, and click on the link to install. Update: some of the apps are also available through the Quick Apps store.

Some of the OTA software is no longer supported by or available from the creator, but all of the apps listed above can be found online as of May 2020. Searching for the app name with the version number plus “BlackBerry OTA” or “.jad” will usually lead you to a download if you’re persistent. If a download does not install using the BlackBerry browser, you may need to use Opera Mini to download the app.

The usual warnings about downloading software from untrusted sources and compromising your device security apply. If you install apps from websites, you have to take responsibility for the potential results.

Over time, it will become more difficult to find many of these apps. I have had some success locating older software by searching through archived versions of old websites using the ‘Wayback Machine’ at archive.org.

Bonus Step: Backing Up Your Device

You can back up your phone settings and some data using BlackBerry Desktop.

You can back up your third-party apps (including the OTA apps) using BlackBerry Swiss Army Knife.

Bonus Step: Backing Up and Synchronizing PIM Data (Contacts, Calendar, Memos, Tasks)

Here are a few options for backing up and syncing your organizer data. If you know of others, please submit them to the original thread over at CrackBerry.

The simplest solution:

Use the BlackBerry Desktop software (still working in 2020 with Windows 10). This requires you to connect your phone to your computer via USB cable or bluetooth, which means synchronization only occurs when you do it manually. It has the advantage of being very secure and private. Look up the official BlackBerry guide in the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive: http://ca.blackberry.com/support/apps-and-software/desktop-pc.html. The link cannot be posted without crashing this site. The BlackBerry Desktop software can be downloaded here.

Note that BlackBerry Desktop does not work with MS Outlook 2013 or 2016 64-bit. You need the 32-bit version of Outlook 2013 or 2016 if you want to use BlackBerry Desktop to sync your Outlook data with your Bold 9900. BlackBerry Desktop does work with earlier 64-bit versions of Outlook.

Configuration hints: the original Facebook app (not the newer browser-based app) installs a calendar service book that can interfere with calendar syncing. You may need to uninstall the app and the Facebook [CICAL] service book in order to sync your calendar. I also experienced trouble establishing a reliable two-way sync. Fixing the problem involved deleting all of the calendar, contact, task, and memo entries from my device, selecting "forget my device" in BlackBerry Desktop, and then reconnecting the device and re-entering the organizer sync settings. If you do this, make sure you have your data backed up somewhere else (hopefully in Outlook) before proceeding.

Networked wireless solutions:

BlackBerry OS 7.1 can make use of an old PIM sync protocol, SyncML, to sync the calendar and contacts. You have two options to backup and sync your PIM data wirelessly using SyncML.

1. Memotoo (OTA).

Memotoo offers the ability to sync your calendar, contacts, tasks, and memos to memotoo's cloud, as well as to the major webmail services, Evernote, and Simplenote, among others. The downside is that you'll be putting all of your data on someone else’s server. Of course, you might already being doing that (on Gmail, Outlook.com, etc.) and it might not matter to you. The upside is that you can sync from anywhere at any time, as long as you have a wifi or cellular connection. You can create an account and download the app at memotoo.com.

2. Set up your own SyncML server (Advanced).

This information in the next paragraph should probably be archived, but I've left it here on the off-chance that someone wants to use it with a legacy operating system on a private network. Most (probably all) groupware projects have removed syncml support.

You can use the OneMediaHub (BBW) or Memotoo (OTA) apps, which are both based on the open-source FUNAMBOL client, to sync with your own SyncML server. The OneMediaHub service no longer works, but the app allows you to connect with your own server instead -- as does the Memotoo app. The major problem is that the easy to work with open-source servers don't seem to work anymore (FUNAMBOL is impossible to install and eGroupWare dropped SyncML support). Horde groupware may still support SyncML, but there are no good guides for setting it up and I have failed repeatedly in my efforts. I've had the call out for a successful Horde setup guide since 2014 and no one has ever replied.

[1] Opera Mini: if you log into any accounts using Opera Mini, you will be transmitting your passwords through Opera's proxy server, which is probably not a great idea.

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