What did RIM Do To Their Bluetooth Performance?
When our customers have a problem, their problem is our problem.
We’ve created a great product that allows BlackBerry users to use their BlackBerry as a Bluetooth modem for their laptops, but for many of them the speed is much slower than it should be. Since their problem is our problem, we’ve invested several weeks in testing and profiling to see where this performance bottleneck is, and unfortunately it isn’t something we’re able to fix.
In their latest OS version for the BlackBerry 870x series, RIM has crippled Bluetooth transfer speeds - taking them from 200+k down to 65k (see below).
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Impact of Blackberry OS Version on Bandwidth |
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| Model | Carrier | BB OS Version | Download(kps) | Upload (kps) | ||
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| 8700g | T-Mobile | 4.1.0.284 | 218 | 74 | ||
| 8700g | T-Mobile | 4.1.0.346 | 68 | 32 | ||
| 8700c | Cingular | 4.1.0.194 | 220 | 71 | ||
| 8700c | Cingular | 4.1.0.377 | 64 | 29 | ||
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Was this an accident? Is it a simple bug that RIM will fix? Or is RIM intentionally disabling their devices in this way, perhaps in a response to carrier pressure?
We are currently unsure whether this is an intentional performance degradation or not, but it seems clear that Research In Motion has not done anything to fix it. Cingular, notable for having one of the most venerable BlackBerry OS revisions on the market today (4.1.0.175) recently updated to 4.1.0.377 and experienced the same drop in performance. This makes it clear that the problem has not yet been rectified, at least not soon enough to make it into the latest build.
This problem is not present in BlackBerry OS 4.2 for the Pearl, which could be for a variety of reasons:
- The problem was discovered and fixed in 4.2. This seems unlikely, as the issue code probably also be fixed in 4.1.0.337 if this were the case.
- 4.2 was forked off of 4.1 before the problem was introduced to the 4.1 codebase.
- RIM introduced this flaw intentionally to increase the demand for the Pearl.
If RIM is unaware of the issue (which seems unlikely), 4.2 may end up with the same problem as “improvements” made to the 4.1 branch are folded into the 4.2 branch.
I kind of have a hard time buying this one. Most users are probably not aware of their Bluetooth bandwidth speeds at all: in my own experience, the 70 kps build is adequate for Bluetooth headset use, for instance.
Pulse dialup networking speeds are much faster with the old Bluetooth implementation: T-Mobile users are limited by their network speeds, but still can hit speeds of up to 220 kps. The 8703e, which runs on EVD0 networks, could theoretically go even faster, except that it doesn’t have an older BlackBerry OS build to go back to.
Whatever the reason, the current 4.1 Bluetooth stack is badly broken and is hurting our customers. As it stands now, I am encouraging our users to downgrade their OS builds if performance is a must-have feature for them (it is for me, I downgraded as soon as I realized what a difference it made). At this time I don’t know what to do for our customers using 8703e’s.
If anyone knows why this has happened or whether RIM has any intention of fixing it (even if it’s in the forthcoming 4.2 update for the 8700) PLEASE let us know. A lot of our customers have complained about the slow speeds and we are unsure what to tell them to expect.
-Daniel
Filed under: Pulse by Daniel
14 Responses to “What did RIM Do To Their Bluetooth Performance?”
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Why not contact RIM? I mean, to develop for their platform - you have to register as a developer, and if you have this level of access to their inner workings of the Blackberry - why not just submit this as a bug in need of fixing, put the ball in their court in terms of if and when they are going to fix it.
Let’s look at this reasonably. RIM supports bluetooth connects to PCs (for syncing data). RIM supports using the device as a modem for your PC. But RIM doesn’t support using it as a modem over bluetooth. Have you ever thought there might have been a reason for this? Maybe they had some issues getting the appropriate speeds over the bluetooth connection consistently. No that couldn’t be it. They just don’t want your product to work. Do you also have conspiracy theories that 9/11 never happened or carried out by Bush? Seriously.
Does anyone know where I can download 4.1.0.284 for t-mobile?
What is this “kps” unit? Do you mean kbps (kilobits per second) or kBps (kilobytes per second)? And what is RIM’s response to your accusation?
I don’t want to spread any FUD here, but I suspect there might be a very simple, five-character explanation for this. “8707g”.
RIM tends to focus on two features of the 8707g in their product pages. 3G connectivity and the use of the 8707g as a “tethered modem”. [1]
Unfortunately I am new to the whole RIM/BB scence (expecting my first bb (8700g) to be delivered soon) and not quite familiar to RIM’s business tactics, but the 8707g would most certainly sell better if it was not just capable of being used as a modem but *the only [8700 series]* Blackberry really capable of being used as such.
The 8707g was released sometime last summer, so you might want to check if the crippled BT speed firmwares were released then, too.
[1] http://www.blackberry.com/ap/products/blackberry8700/blackberry8707g.shtml
Regards,
– flo
[Sorry for the double post]
Tux: I’m not *them* (as in whomever used “kps”), but quite sure about it being k*b/s (kilo (binary) bits per second. The 8700g devices aren’t capable of any 3G network connections and to my knowledge only HSCSD allows actual WWAN connectivity over 1 Mbps (Megabits per second).
By my reckoning, 1 kps == 1024 bits in one second.
A couple of questions:
1) are modem speeds affected when tethered via usb, rather than bluetooth?
2) are file transfer speeds similarly limited in new firmware?
The reason I ask is that the new speeds are suspiciously close to GPRS (meaning non-EDGE) speeds). Is it possible RIM has changed something in the modem initialization?
Good question, Grant. We’ve managed to demonstrate pretty conclusively that the probably is just with the Bluetooth link.
And you’re right, with the fast Bluetooth stack we’re network limited by EDGE speeds.
-Daniel
[…] The Pulse solution doesn’t run as fast as it should. Brain Murmurs (the company that made Pulse) set about working with users and doing tests to discover the problem. What did they find? That Bluetooth speeds for BlackBerrys have been crippled by each subsequent RIM OS upgrade. […]
[…] The Pulse solution doesn’t run as fast as it should. Brain Murmurs (the company that made Pulse) set about working with users and doing tests to discover the problem. What did they find? That Bluetooth speeds for BlackBerrys have been crippled by each subsequent RIM OS upgrade. […]
[…] permalink Alex King writes " I organized a bounty for the creation of a ‘BlackBerry as a modem’ solution for Mac OS X earlier this year. The resulting product — Pulse, from Brain Murmurs — allows you to use your BlackBerry as a standard Bluetooth modem. It works great on both Windows and Mac. Current problem: The Pulse solution doesn’t run as fast as it used to. Brain Murmurs did a bunch of testing and working with their users and found the problem: RIM has crippled the Bluetooth speeds in recent OS upgrades. Is this a ‘mistake’ on RIM’s side that will be fixed? Or did they do this on purpose for some reason?" — Read more and here […]
Can I downgrade my 8700G to the 4.1.0.284 build? I’m ready to buy your interface software but what’s the point if I get the throughput?
I’m in portand, oregon, and have had a pearl-tmobile for three months, and I have seen all the problems.
Yes, I can keep my pearl working with t-mo bile, but I have NOT worked so hard since I was pirating DSS five years ago, where we spent 20 hours a week of hard work to get a movie for free, a smart person would have just bought full dss-dtv service.
In the t-mobile case I had the dream of being anywhere in the world and having IP access, and so far the 8100 is NOT reliable day-to-day I never know when its going to fail. So far to date the ONLY way to fix the beast is to go back to windows when it fails, and remove the software, and reinstall the cd-rom virgin, and get your modem back.
I have 1/2 a dozen pc’s at remote locations, and many mac’s that I use with this pearl. In no instance ever has the pearl connection been better than a dial-up, in terms of quality. Problem is I have some places that have NO phone, and thus I bought the pearl
Here is what I have learned.
1.) NEVER use the new software online from t-mobile or rim, it seems to destroy the OS in the 8100, and cause loss of modem over time.
2.) The pocket-mac software seems to be the same.
3.) If your a mac only person, your in deep doo-doo, because ALL system work on the 8100 MUST be done from windows. NO one supports system work for the MAC.
4.) Anytime you have failure go to the RIM modem on windows { com3… }, and run the diag’s, if that fails then re-install the whole cd-rom from windows after removing it.
5.) Once you have a good modem on widows, then you can mess with the modem on the mac.
6.) While I can connect the mac to the 8100 via bluetooth, I have never made the connection via usb.
7.) Likewise while I can make a connection on windows via usb, I have never been able to connect windows to the 8100 via bluetooth.
All of the above is just to help other folks NOT waste months of their time.
8.) Once you have a good modem one windows then go to the mac, and create the connection per grants script and the stuff in this thread.
9.) In reading the description of common logs above, the number one problem is that in the connection dialog the phone number reverts to “*99*1# or whatever, that must be replaced with the APN { wap.voicestream.com } or whatever. Whenever you connect with good logs and get a disconnect, this is usually the reason, and this is because the mac doesn’t know where the DNS is-is
10) In the city the connection only lasts 20 minutes or 2MB download what ever comes first, sometimes at night I can download more than 2MB
11.) In the country where there are NO cell users, often a connection can go for hours.
In summary the 8100 is NOT for real work, its just a toy for techies.
I’m fifty a computer scientist, have been doing this stuff my whole life, thus I always want to test new devices.
I would NOT advocate this system to anyone other than a computer expert.
I can only imagine how many 1,000’s of dollars a computer non-expert would have to pay a consultant to keep these devices working.
Again if your a consultant then this device could be a good racket.