RIM details revamped BlackBerry Internet Service 4.1

Research In Motion has revealed details of the next iteration of its BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), which includes extended email support.

The BlackBerry smartphone maker introduced the new features on Monday on the BlackBerry Knowledge Base pages.

Among the new features, available to people with handsets running the BlackBerry 7 operating system, are larger attachment support — up to 8MB in size — as well as allowing email messages up to 11MB in total size.

The Canadian company has also introduced a feature that prevents interruptions to email functionality when swapping SIM cards.

"Subscribers who insert a new SIM card in to their BlackBerry smartphone, including SIM cards from a different wireless service provider, no longer experience email flow interruptions," RIM said. "BIS only stops sending email to a smartphone when the subscriber deletes all data from the smartphone, not when a new SIM card is inserted."

This means that people must remember to wipe all data from handsets to protect personal information if they plan on selling the device, RIM warned.

The service will also now pre-populate a user's inbox with up to 20 messages when a new email address is added to a device. BIS also now supports emails sent in Latvian or Lithuanian for the first time.

The updated BIS 4.1 service is expected to start rolling out to BlackBerry 7 handsets from October.