A reader named Nick at BlackBerry Cool is especially observant these days.

He was on the Rogers Wireless support site and guess what he found.

A pull-down menu that leads to a page for the white BlackBerry Pearl.

Which can only mean one thing.

Coming real, real soon.

Now let's look at this image.

If Rogers has gone this far insofar as including a support page for the white Pearl, I'd have to say the device will be available any day now. I am guessing within a week.

• $3 a month for the Rogers NewsClip (shown at right) news alert service, when he already has a mobile RSS reader that feeds him the same news for free;
• 75 cents an answer for AskMeNow when most of the questions are Google-able;
• bbTV: "stale news clips for ..$5 a month;
• Mindit Assist: $20 a month for software that lets you customize responses to emails and other communication. He thinks this should be a one-time load, not a subscription-based deal.
• Sales Anywhere. Alec says that he envisions sales reps dependent on Salesforce.com might find value in this $25 a month service.
  

First, you have to live in Canada.

Second, you need to sign up with Rogers for a three-year plan.

Third, you have to be one of the first 50 people per day to show your face at the International Centre in Mississauga, Ontario on these days:

• Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:00 PM - 8:00 PM
• Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
• Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

If you do the click-y just below I will show you this offer and also let technology from our peeps at MapQuest illustrate where the International Centre (I just love typing Centre rather than Center) is:

And how do I get there, you ask?

Well,

Wow that's kinda close to the airport.

One more thing.. "Disco Road" is nearby. I kid you not.

BlackBerry Cool reports there's a BlackBerry Pearl 8100 support area up on the Rogers site.

Well, that's an area, true, but as both Steve from there and me from here will tell ya, the support area is kind of a shell right now.

But not for long..with Rogers formally adding the Pearl in the next few days.

I am hearing reports from my BlackBerry friends that the data network is not working for some. Last night on Pinstack petroly started a thread called "tmobile data down." Petroly reported that T-Mobile said their server was down. Several other stackers reported similar problems with email and Internet.

Me being me, I tried to load a web page with no problem, and figured it was all back up and running. I was even able to download and install the newest Yahoo Messenger off the BlackBerry website around 2am last night. I have noticed it takes longer to load and pictures are not coming.

I am hearing again this morning that people are having intermittent problems with data and email. People from Tennessee, Kansas, California, Texas, and Pennsylvania are all reporting issues today and last night. My husband is in Iowa and I am in Florida, and we both seem to have data. Sn1p3R reported that Bell, Telus, and Rogers in Canada is also having problems.

My question to all BBHub readers is where are you? Who do you use? Are you working? I am hoping this is not a big problem with RIM.

Comments by Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie all but affirm that the BlackBerry Pearl will be available in Canada next week.

That would be in keeping with one of our sources, who gave us the scoop in this post.

The carrier will be Rogers, which RIM had previously announced as the Pearl's exclusive carrier in that nation.

"I'm not suppose(d) to pre-announce another carrier's launch plans next week," Balsillie said, "but I don't think these things will be very long," Balsillie said yesterday. "Heaven forbid that September should end without these things being announced."

Well, it sure sounds like "heaven" won't have "to wait."

The announcement is official: The BlackBerry Pearl (a.k.a. 8100) is coming to Rogers in October.

Specific date? No one is saying but that doesn't mean we won't find out.

As a matter of fact we have found out. Can't say where but 'twill be October 26 (not October 6).

Happy talk:

"As Canada's leading wireless carrier and data leader, Rogers Wireless is pleased to be the first to introduce the new BlackBerry Pearl in Canada," said John Boynton, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer at Rogers Wireless. "Leveraging the popular and proven BlackBerry platform, the BlackBerry Pearl is the handset for everyone, combining the most advanced voice and data features with multi-media features such as a media player and camera together in a small and powerful smartphone."

"RIM and Rogers have been working together on wireless technologies for nearly 20 years and it is extremely gratifying to jointly introduce another breakthrough product to the Canadian market," said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. "We set out to address the demand from a growing number of consumers for an ultra sleek and stylish smartphone that can also deliver an uncompromising mobile voice, email and browsing experience. The innovative BlackBerry Pearl solidly hits the mark."

Pinstack.com's Lewis reports that during an instore visit, he heard from a Rogers Wireless dealer that there is going to be a new Rogers BlackBerry pricing plan that will take effect August 1.

That's this Tuesday, by the way.

The plan will be up to 200 MB for $100 (CDN) a month.

This will be in addition to the three other existing Rogers BlackBerry data plans:

• $25 for 0.5 MB, additional: $31 per MB
• $40 for 1 MB, additional $10 per MB
• $60 for 25 MB, additional $ 7 per MB

As of today, the new plan has not been posted yet, but how much you wanna bet it will be up on the Rogers site sometime on Monday. Or Tuesday morning @ the very latest.

BlackBerry service from Rogers Communications was out in parts of downtown Toronto yesterday afternoon.

The cause, Rogers spokesperson Taanta Gupta said, was a cut in the fiber used by networking provider Allstream to bridge Rogers and Research In Motion's mobile networks and routing facilities.

In fact, the Toronto Star's Tara Perkins spoke to several users who were quite inconvenienced to say the least.

One of them was Bruce Drysdale,a public affairs official for Toronto-based nickel miner Inco, Ltd., whose bid for Falconbrdige Ltd. was set to expire last night.

"A public affairs person, in the middle of a (mergers and acqusitions) battle, and your BlackBerry goes down," Drysdale told Perkins.

Drysdale added that to make things even more frustrating, Inco CEO's BlackBerry was on the same network.

Inco's CEO's name is Scott Hand. So, I guess his BlackBerry is his "Hand held."

(Yea I know, I'm a blogger, not a comedian).

In what will come as a surprise to virtually no one, Rogers and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion formally placed the BlackBerry 7130g on sale today. (Note: that link should be active by mid-morning).

The device is GSM/GPRS/EDGE network-compatible, with 64MB flash memory, 240 minutes talk time, and 16 days worth of juice in standby.

Pricing and availability are according  to the length of the service contract you sign for Rogers Wireless service.-No term $499.99; 1 Year $499.99;  2 Year $449.99.

Last I checked, Rogers site had the 3-Year listed at $399.99, but the press release that just went out a few minutes ago about the announcement has the three-year price at $249.99 counting a $50 rebate. 

OK, I admit that I am not first to market with this.

Still, as the BlackBerry blog of record I thought I should present this shot of an oversized BlackBerry 7130g.

This photo was taken by a BlackBerry Cool reader who attended the Rogers BlackBerry 7130 party in Montreal earlier this week.

What is there about BlackBerry launch parties and huge model BlackBerrys?

I guess that size matt... better not go there.

And I won't.

Back on June 12, I reported that Rogers posted a BlackBerry 7130g support document on their website.

Not the biggest shock then, to see that documentation followed up by a product page for the 7130g, a page from where you can really buy the device.

Purchase price without a plan, or even with a one-year: $499.99.

Two-year plan gets you a $50.00 instant rebate which drives the price down to- OK, calculators everyone- ta-da: $449.00!

Signing up for a three-year plan and that'll be $399.9.

Not entirely unexpected. After all, there's been a "when will" type of thread on BlackBerryForums for some time now.

But there's a difference between that type of thread and what we see today: a shell on the Rogers site pointing to documentation for the 7130g.

They wouldn't have put the shell up if more was not coming. More, as in, like, tomorrow?

Just a little while ago, this morning a Howard Forums user named raymakers who identifies himself as a Rogers employee posted the excerpt you see from a sales bulletin he has received.

HMM, maybe a BlackBerry cameraphone?

He's asking others for info.

At the least, this thread is worth tracking.

BlackBerry-carrier Rogers Wireless of Canada has just introduced mobile software developer iAnywhere's Sales Anywhere for Salesforce.com.

BlackBerry-compliant Sales Anywhere for Salesforce provides access to customer contact information contained in company databases, and then allows that data to be retrieved wirelessly for display on handhelds.

Rogers is charging $25 a month for a subscription to the Sales Anywhere service suite, which is used by sales types to coordinate customer data before and after that important sales call.

Traveling so have to be brief, but numerous reports today on the Yahoo! BlackBerry Users Group that BlackBerry service has been out on the Rogers Network in and around Toronto since last night. Email especially, although PIN service seems to not have been interrupted.

But the very latest couple of posts say the issue has now been fixed and everything is back to normal.

Here's a link to the thread where these problems have been discussed.