The next upgrade for BlackBerry Z10 users will be available in April

Mar 16, 2013 17:31 GMT  ·  By

Bad news for SaskTel customers that purchased the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. The carrier has just announced it won't offer the recently released OS 10.0.10.85 update for the Z10 because it did not pass the Technical Approval process.

Apparently, there's a problem with the roaming capabilities of SaskTel's BlackBerry Z10, which will make the smartphone unusable when visiting other countries where the carrier's network is not accessible.

According to SaskTel, this major update from BlackBerry will have a negative impact on Z10 users that wish to take advantage of the phone's roaming capabilities.

“Without getting too long-winded and technical, the piece that it broke was what allows SaskTel customers to roam anywhere in the world where SaskTel does not have a direct roaming agreement with the local carrier (instead, we rely on a 3rd-party relationship that allows us to roam using their roaming agreements).

“The feature that allows this, is a technical requirement from SaskTel. This issue has been identified and will be fixed in the next OS update.”

There's more to it as SaskTel claims this issue might affect other carriers as well, but these carriers did not skip the update because they don't have the same technical requirements for that feature.

“This technical issue is present in other carriers versions of the OS update as well, however, they do not have that same technical requirement for that feature. Our goal is to ensure a consistent roaming experience for all of our customers.

“You can imagine the frustration a customer might experience if they visited a country one month ago and had great service, only to visit again tomorrow and find out that their phone no longer works there.”

SaskTel also confirmed BlackBerry Z10 users could expect the next OS 10 update to arrive in late April. The carrier claims the upgrade will not have any “negative impact” on its customers, which means this issue will be fixed. Stay tuned for more info on the matter.