I have a blackberry curve on an orange pay monthly contract. I am unable to send or receive picture messages, only have options for SMS and email.

Have contacted Orange who want to charge me £5 a month to add on Blackberry bundle whatever that is, but surely picture messages are a standard feature on phones these days not an optional extra?

Can anyone help??

The BB bundle is specifically for e-mail/BB specific functions, nothing to do with MMS. I've never understood why they have to offer specific Blackberry bundles, as at the end of the day its just data, same as you'd pay on any other tariff.

I've always configured MMS/Picture messaging direct via the Orange website :

http://setuporange.wdsglobal.com/

Click the photo messaging option there, and it should take you through a few screens - entering your phone make/model, phone number, etc. Then iirc you get a sim update sent through shortly afterwards, reboot the phone and you should then be able to send/receive MMS.

Blackberry handsets are different from other phones in that they need a subscription to the Blackberry service as data goes through Blackberry servers. I don't think clonmult's advice will work.

Without Blackberry data, you'll be restricted to apps which use the operator's APN (and the hotspot browser/wi-fi).

Have a look at pingchat

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/13211

Data may go through them, but we're talking about SMS and MMS that are core functions outside of the Blackberry services.

Still reckon that its just a case of getting Orange to send the relevant MMS settings through, and little else.

Pingchat will only work between yourself and other users on pingchat. Doesn't really help here.

I have issues with Pingchat on something more fundamental. Advertised as "PingChat! works with all major smartphones." No it doesn't. Its not supported on Symbian, which until a few months back was by far and away the worlds best selling smartphone platform.

You need BIS for MMS. It's data, data goes through the BB servers.

Thats a bit lousy, but apparently its not quite the case.

http://bb.anworm.com/enable-blackber...hout-bisbes-2/

So just a case of getting the right configurations.

Had a BlackBerry on Orange once (for 3 weeks). After those 3 weeks of arguing with Orange trying to get the phone to do what I wanted (including send MMS), and them wanting to add extra packages on to make it happen, I told them to take their phone back and cancelled because they'd mis-sold me a phone saying it would do something it didn't and then trying to flog me stuff for extra money later.

MMS on Orange does require BIS. If the OP doesn't want to pay that and MMS is something they use often, they should take the phone back and swap it for something else.

That's about enabling the browser to use over TCP?

I still say the advice you gave above will not work. The OP will need BIS and have the service books sent to the phone.

Have you tried re-booting it?