bbvk05's dashboard

The Blackberry pearl on Verizon wireless has a built in GPS that is software locked by verizon to force you to use their $10/mo VZ navigator program. I found this out after getting a blackberry pearl because it was GPS capable with the hopes that I could use it with google maps or Blackberry's built in mapping software.

When I talked to a Verizon representative I was told that blackberry locks the GPS, which I later found to be a lie. If you do get VZ navigator ($10 monthly) it allow allows the functionality of GPS in Google maps if VZ navigator is running the background. Thus we can see that the GPS chip is activated by VZ navigator and it works on basically any program that uses GPS on your blackberry. Simply put: it is obviously Verizon who has crippled the GPS feature on your phone. They do it because they want you to pay for a program they offer when you can easily get a similar service for free... so they lock your phone's GPS so you can no longer get a similar service for free.

If you want to get the built in GPS with the phone that you pay for you are going to have to get it from ATT, Sprint, or TMobile. Verizon locks the valuable features on the phone you paid for because they want you to pay more to them to use something you already own.

Verizon could easily unlock this for anyone who asks, but I guess that they are willing to gamble that the $10/mo they get from a bunch of people outweighs the money they will lose from people like me who will be leaving them if they do not let me use the features on the phone that I own.