Does iPhone activation lock the phone to a specific SIM?

I was in a situation similar to yours. I'm on a family talk plan and we never use the "correct" number to upgrade. They can use that new line for the upgrade eligibility but then enrole another number in the plan for the iphone data plan and then activate it with your original #. I just did that today when my iphone came off of dr.

kman79 said:

So if I was to go to the Apple/ATT store, the way to do it is have them add a new line, and just prior to them inserting the SIM, have them insert my current SIM card and then have it activated?

My concern is, whether or not Apple/ATT will allow such a thing at point of purchase or if I would have to "Re-Activate" the phone myself.

Thanks again for the input and reply

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First off I would NOT go to an Apple store for all of this. I believe all of this has to be done at an AT&T store (unfortunately) since it has to do with switching a lot of things around. What, from my understanding as just a consumer that has gone through the process, to do is this: Add the new line when you file your DF order for the iPhone (or wait it out til they get stock), they have to have an upgrade eligible # in order to be able to order you the phone. Wait for the phone to get in (or skip that if you waited until they take walk-ins). What they do is the extend the contract of the new line to that 2 years (something you would have to do most likely anyways), so that satisfies their desire to keep a number on the AT&T system. They then have to take off the entire 3G data plan that was automatically applied to that new number and apply it to your current line. They then activate the SIM card within the iPhone to your original line (or they can plop our old SIM card in if it was a 3G one). You then need to tell them to activate another sim card for the new line's # so it can be put inside your old phone so your brother can use it.

It will cost you twice the activation fee (because you are potentially activating 2 new SIM cards), but it's a way around the eligibility requirements...if you think signing up for a whole new line is getting around it. Of course this is all from my point of view of having gone through something similar. I would call AT&T services and make sure that you can do all of that before you go through with it.

When I went through using another line in the family talk plan to extend the contract, then had them activate the iPhone with my # it took around 35 minutes or so, not to say their service was bad or friendly, it just wasnt a grab and go procedure since there's a lot of protocol they have to follow when activating an iPhone in comparison to when you get any other standard phone.

Good luck!

Yeah when I registered my iPhone in iTunes, I used a different phone number to the one that I signed up with, with the iPhone (got a new account for my wife and gave her my old phone, and I used the new iPhone).

So you should be fine doing this also.

You'll be fine. Thats the beauty with SIM cards, they can be swapped from phone to phone. Its your SIM that holds your current number and all that information. iTunes will solely reconize the iPhone, not the SIM card (I think).

I'm with Rogers here in Canada, and prior to iPhone we used to swap phones all over the place just by replacing the SIMS.

Really don't think you'll have any trouble.

I upgraded with my wife's line and when I got home I just put my sim card in and it worked fine. The only thing that I had to do was change the data plan on to my line which took about 20 min on the phone with att.