This story isn't about a 2% failure rate. It's about a 98% success rate - which to me seems kind of impressive for phone activations on such a massive scale.
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AT&T Activation Delays for iPhone Buyers
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Yeah 98% should be considered very successful. Of course if you were one of the 2% I know it must be hard to look at it that way. Hopefully your phone is activated by now. It would be a nice gesture on Apple's part to send those with activation problems an iTunes gift card.
Here in Europe, activating phones and porting numbers is sometimes a difficult process as well. And we have to pay extra for porting as well. And we have been doing this even for several years.
98% success rate is quite impressive for a weekend.
98% success rate is quite impressive for a weekend.
Who we fooling?
This was bound to happen, come on. Does anyone remember when World of Warcraft came out, how unplayable it was because of how overcrowded the servers got?
I'd say that 2% is not bad at all.
This was bound to happen, come on. Does anyone remember when World of Warcraft came out, how unplayable it was because of how overcrowded the servers got?
I'd say that 2% is not bad at all.
Why is it that everything in life always comes back to World of Warcraft
On a serious note and frustrations aside, 2% is a pretty low failure rate. I think ATT did decent job preparing for launch. I have noticed a signal boost in my neighborhood in Chicago (now only if they would provide service in the subway tunnels).
You can not please everyone all the time. It is difficult enough to please Apple fans half the time.
It all depends on how you spin it. If Apple or At&t came out with a press release that said, "98 percent of all users were activited online within 1-2 hours", it would be viewed as good news.
2 percent delays in activation, especially for an entirely new way of activating a phone, is great. Yeah, no delays would be optimal, but geez...
2 percent delays in activation, especially for an entirely new way of activating a phone, is great. Yeah, no delays would be optimal, but geez...
Its worth the wait...
I'm just happy that I didn't buy my phone right away. In fact, I'm not planning to get one until August of 2008 (thats when my Sprint contract expires). New technology concerns me although it does sound like the iPhone is really living up to its name. If I bought my phone now I know I'd be going through issues with activiation also. I guess its a common thing, eh?
Anyway, I'll be even happier to wait- who knows, Apply may come out with a newer version of the iPhone then. But until then, I'm just going to wait patiently.
I'm just happy that I didn't buy my phone right away. In fact, I'm not planning to get one until August of 2008 (thats when my Sprint contract expires). New technology concerns me although it does sound like the iPhone is really living up to its name. If I bought my phone now I know I'd be going through issues with activiation also. I guess its a common thing, eh?
Anyway, I'll be even happier to wait- who knows, Apply may come out with a newer version of the iPhone then. But until then, I'm just going to wait patiently.
For those that did face activation delays, AT&T should come out and voluntarily waive the $36 activation fee as a gesture of good faith. Things like this are bound to happen when you have 500,000 or so people trying to activate a phone over a single weekend. However, that still doesn't make it fun for those customers that just spent $600 and are committing to a 2 year contract. AT&T could buy some good publicity for themselves by waiving those fees.
There is no fee if you are a current customer, what do I get.
Well, there is no reason they can't give a $36 service credit to the account of an existing customer that had iPhone activation problems as well.
well, mine took about 7 hours to activate. but at least it did. and i had to call to get my data plan and voicemail right
Activation an ATT problem for me
38 hours after starting the activation, I finally found an ATT employee who recognized the problem and at least told me how to resolve it before having to wait for another hour on hold for customer service. His explanation was that I had been an ATT customer prior to their merger with Cingular and now was hung up in their system. That is clearly ATT's lack of preparation and further lack of training for the 7 or 8 representatives I spoke to during the wait. Since it took minutes from my finally speaking to an "activation specialist" for the phone to start working, it would seem that this problem could have been resolved promptly.
Having expected a relatively easy activation (I was an ATT customer with a number and good credit history, had Mac OS 10.4.10, iTunes 7.3), I was frustrated compounded by the (mis)statement in the on-line PDF manual that the features of the phone other than making calls would be functional during activation, which was not the case and that is Apple's fault.
I am very used to being an early adopter, from my 1977 Apple II to my Mac 128K to the first MacIntel system and have no illusions about the perfection of newly introduced products. I am also prepared to wait for resolution of issues, but expect a reasonable committment from the vendor side. I think that ATT should have been much better prepared for what could easily have been predicted to be an onslaught and I think Apple could have made the device functional during the activation process.
38 hours after starting the activation, I finally found an ATT employee who recognized the problem and at least told me how to resolve it before having to wait for another hour on hold for customer service. His explanation was that I had been an ATT customer prior to their merger with Cingular and now was hung up in their system. That is clearly ATT's lack of preparation and further lack of training for the 7 or 8 representatives I spoke to during the wait. Since it took minutes from my finally speaking to an "activation specialist" for the phone to start working, it would seem that this problem could have been resolved promptly.
Having expected a relatively easy activation (I was an ATT customer with a number and good credit history, had Mac OS 10.4.10, iTunes 7.3), I was frustrated compounded by the (mis)statement in the on-line PDF manual that the features of the phone other than making calls would be functional during activation, which was not the case and that is Apple's fault.
I am very used to being an early adopter, from my 1977 Apple II to my Mac 128K to the first MacIntel system and have no illusions about the perfection of newly introduced products. I am also prepared to wait for resolution of issues, but expect a reasonable committment from the vendor side. I think that ATT should have been much better prepared for what could easily have been predicted to be an onslaught and I think Apple could have made the device functional during the activation process.
This is all very normal in the mobile telecoms world...
For those of us in the telecoms industry, this is very normal. 2% is very small in comparison to a lot of mobile product launches.
However, a wise telco would know that this would happen and plan accordingly before the event to be prepared as opposed to panic afterwards.
For those of us in Asia...we have the longest wait for activation!!
For those of us in the telecoms industry, this is very normal. 2% is very small in comparison to a lot of mobile product launches.
However, a wise telco would know that this would happen and plan accordingly before the event to be prepared as opposed to panic afterwards.
For those of us in Asia...we have the longest wait for activation!!
What I don't get is...
WHY is the phone a brick prior to activation?
Perhaps people would be less upset if they could use the non-phone features, such as the iPod part, before activating.
What reason is there to tie a feature that doesn't need the network, to the network?
This actually concerns me a bit; does the iPod part of the phone NEED the cel network for some reason?
I've resisted getting an iPhone until certain features are available, but this is all unnerving. It seems to be full of artificial and unnecessary restrictions that really shouldn't be on a $600 device with NO freaking subsidy.
WHY is the phone a brick prior to activation?
Perhaps people would be less upset if they could use the non-phone features, such as the iPod part, before activating.
What reason is there to tie a feature that doesn't need the network, to the network?
This actually concerns me a bit; does the iPod part of the phone NEED the cel network for some reason?
I've resisted getting an iPhone until certain features are available, but this is all unnerving. It seems to be full of artificial and unnecessary restrictions that really shouldn't be on a $600 device with NO freaking subsidy.
No...many of them had bad credit (or maybe only mistakenly appeared to have bad credit - Equifax screws up pretty regularly) or a not-allowed business account, , or a family plan, or some screwy Cingular legacy account, or a dunce trying to activate it, or they didn't read the activation requirments, or they didn't have iTunes 7.3, or they were trying to use 10.3.9.
So we have Apple trying to effect, on a mass scale, the implementation of a very complicated device, that, for the first time, relies on a notoriously cumbersome company (AT&T) in an industry that it not reputed to be particularly customer-friendly, and whose underpinnings are closely regulated by a US governmental agency. What a recipe for disaster.
So many variables and potential pitfalls...then throw in the 300,000 iPhone-obsessors that have been posting all of these "I can't wait for the iPhone" threads here all trying with trembling fingers to get their new toy up and running all in the same 24 hour period. Now, Apple not only has to worry about their hardware, but also the system and customer base that AT&T created. Then, for 2%, it doesn't work and the righteous anger of the classic disappointed Apple fan-boy hits the internet full-force. Complete with the usual calls for class-action suits. And, as usual, the media jumps in and fans the flames because the now have an opportunity to trash two of their favorite targets - Apple Computer and a giant cell-phone company. Boy, this whole thing is absolutely classic.
Number port problem
i activated my iphone on friday. the confirmation said the number port would be completed in 6 hours. well, it was not completed, nor were there any useful messages when i got up this morning, 3 days later! i could make outbound calls, however. att does NOT have customer service staff on sundays, can you believe that! so this morning a called customer service. after a 15 min. wait i spoke to a lady who was instantly able to activate my phone for incoming calls.
BTW, i am on the gophone plan. a further annoyance is that att has several similar, yet differnet portals for their wireless customers. trying to log on to a 'wrong' one made me change my password, but still never let me check my account.
these are all the same problems (incompetence?) that made me leave att years ago to switch to sprint.
i activated my iphone on friday. the confirmation said the number port would be completed in 6 hours. well, it was not completed, nor were there any useful messages when i got up this morning, 3 days later! i could make outbound calls, however. att does NOT have customer service staff on sundays, can you believe that! so this morning a called customer service. after a 15 min. wait i spoke to a lady who was instantly able to activate my phone for incoming calls.
BTW, i am on the gophone plan. a further annoyance is that att has several similar, yet differnet portals for their wireless customers. trying to log on to a 'wrong' one made me change my password, but still never let me check my account.
these are all the same problems (incompetence?) that made me leave att years ago to switch to sprint.
Mine took 7 hours to activate ... the only thing that made me angry was being left without a cell phone. I just whish they had warned me or something ... then I could have done it before bed instead of before I went out for the evening.
Oh well my frustration was forgotten when I got home to find a activated iphone
Oh well my frustration was forgotten when I got home to find a activated iphone
Attention Verizon customers!
I activated my iPhone at 11pm Saturday night and they are still working on it.
When I called this morning, I was told that the port attempt was cancelled. I was also told that when putting in my Verizon account number, I should have left off the dash and remaining numbers. They said that that has been causing a lot of problems.
I activated my iPhone at 11pm Saturday night and they are still working on it.
When I called this morning, I was told that the port attempt was cancelled. I was also told that when putting in my Verizon account number, I should have left off the dash and remaining numbers. They said that that has been causing a lot of problems.
I activated my iPhone at 11pm Saturday night and they are still working on it.
When I called this morning, I was told that the port attempt was cancelled. I was also told that when putting in my Verizon account number, I should have left off the dash and remaining numbers. They said that that has been causing a lot of problems.
as a programmer i would say that that is obviously bad coding and not the fault of the CUSTOMER!
I activated my iPhone at 11pm Saturday night and they are still working on it.
When I called this morning, I was told that the port attempt was cancelled. I was also told that when putting in my Verizon account number, I should have left off the dash and remaining numbers. They said that that has been causing a lot of problems.
You didn't expect Verizon and T-Mobile to just let their customers got without a fight, did you? Cell phone companies are notorious for dragging their feet as much as possible when you try to move your service to another carrier.
Try this experiment, call you cable company and tell them that you want to terminate your cable because you are going to satellite? See if they don't offer you a discount or two to stay.
Those who I heard about having problems either had REALLY old accounts, or other carriers and were waiting for their other carriers to give up the ghost.
I can't believe I'm seeing people here get MAD about people describing their difficulty in getting their new $500/600 phone activated. If you're a stockholder in Apple or AT&T and the stock takes a hit because of the news now circulating, your beef should be with APPLE and AT&T, *not* the people who were affected by their poor planning! Seriously, do you just want it swept under the rug as if nothing happened? Because that certainly would not encourage them to anticipate these types of problems in the future. Perhaps with all the negative publicity and a stock hit they'll sit up and take notice.
I am one of the individuals hit by this snafu, and it took me nearly 40 hours and quite a few phone calls to AT&T to get the matter resolved. Had I *NOT* called, I'm pretty confident that I'd still be sitting here with a glorified paperweight. In my case, I was an old "blue" AT&T Wireless (pre-Cingular) customer, and my ancient plan was not compatible with the iPhone. This is a case that affected many people, and was obviously not programmed into the iTunes activation scenario. As an AT&T customer of about 10 years, I was pretty miffed about how long it was taking to activate, and I was left without a working phone as my old phone had already been deactivated and my new iPhone SIM would *not* work in the old phone (since it was pre-Cingular). This scenario put many people in a bind--what if this was your only phone? What if an emergency occurred and you were unable to make a phone call to 911 as a result?
AT&T and Apple had at least six months (and likely many more) to prepare for the iPhone launch. I don't believe it was a question of capacity--I believe that AT&T did not properly prepare in terms of all the various cases that might cause problems (legacy "Blue" customers, Business customers, customers with discounts on their existing plans, etc.), and then became overwhelmed when these cases were all rejected by the iTunes registration.
And if you truly believe the "only 2% of customers had problems" quote, I have a bridge to sell you. I bet it was significantly higher than that.
Also keep in mind that the people who stood in line to buy one of the first iPhones are the people you want to be damn sure that you appease. It is these people who are your staunchest fans--the people who preach the Apple brand and help spread the brand by word of mouth. Being unprepared for the problems encountered has left a bad taste in the mouths of these people, and in the future they may not be so quick to recommend Apple to their friends, family, and strangers.
..Al
I am one of the individuals hit by this snafu, and it took me nearly 40 hours and quite a few phone calls to AT&T to get the matter resolved. Had I *NOT* called, I'm pretty confident that I'd still be sitting here with a glorified paperweight. In my case, I was an old "blue" AT&T Wireless (pre-Cingular) customer, and my ancient plan was not compatible with the iPhone. This is a case that affected many people, and was obviously not programmed into the iTunes activation scenario. As an AT&T customer of about 10 years, I was pretty miffed about how long it was taking to activate, and I was left without a working phone as my old phone had already been deactivated and my new iPhone SIM would *not* work in the old phone (since it was pre-Cingular). This scenario put many people in a bind--what if this was your only phone? What if an emergency occurred and you were unable to make a phone call to 911 as a result?
AT&T and Apple had at least six months (and likely many more) to prepare for the iPhone launch. I don't believe it was a question of capacity--I believe that AT&T did not properly prepare in terms of all the various cases that might cause problems (legacy "Blue" customers, Business customers, customers with discounts on their existing plans, etc.), and then became overwhelmed when these cases were all rejected by the iTunes registration.
And if you truly believe the "only 2% of customers had problems" quote, I have a bridge to sell you. I bet it was significantly higher than that.
Also keep in mind that the people who stood in line to buy one of the first iPhones are the people you want to be damn sure that you appease. It is these people who are your staunchest fans--the people who preach the Apple brand and help spread the brand by word of mouth. Being unprepared for the problems encountered has left a bad taste in the mouths of these people, and in the future they may not be so quick to recommend Apple to their friends, family, and strangers.
..Al
I feel for the folks that got hit by an activation issue...
I was an existing AT&T customer with a employer discount rate that was still on my phone from when I worked at HP. iTunes informed me that I would be losing this discounted rate (which I shouldn't have still had anyways) and once I acknowledged that activation took around 3 minutes if not less (wasn't watching the phone).
I can well image that AT&T has an ugly account system with a mix of account from various source thanks to the company mergers, etc. I am not surprised if some accounts got in a bad state as a result and only now did the issue get exposed. Also I know the folks in the AT&T stores have also screwed up my account before (also happened at Sprint).
The reality many of the account management systems SUCK and the training of employees can SUCK as well (turnover in call centers also sucks which contributes to poor level of experience).
I hope AT&T and Apple correct issues quickly and I would love to see them credit some time, etc. to those accounts affected.
One annoyance I have at the moment is that I can't get my account information from AT&T because their website keeps saying system problems are preventing it. So at the moment I don't know exactly what my calling plan looks like (forgot what I had on the account I xfered to my iPhone). Also iTunes doesn't appear to list this information... I wish it did... I would love to have something like an iTunes interface for my AT&T cellular account.
I was an existing AT&T customer with a employer discount rate that was still on my phone from when I worked at HP. iTunes informed me that I would be losing this discounted rate (which I shouldn't have still had anyways) and once I acknowledged that activation took around 3 minutes if not less (wasn't watching the phone).
I can well image that AT&T has an ugly account system with a mix of account from various source thanks to the company mergers, etc. I am not surprised if some accounts got in a bad state as a result and only now did the issue get exposed. Also I know the folks in the AT&T stores have also screwed up my account before (also happened at Sprint).
The reality many of the account management systems SUCK and the training of employees can SUCK as well (turnover in call centers also sucks which contributes to poor level of experience).
I hope AT&T and Apple correct issues quickly and I would love to see them credit some time, etc. to those accounts affected.
One annoyance I have at the moment is that I can't get my account information from AT&T because their website keeps saying system problems are preventing it. So at the moment I don't know exactly what my calling plan looks like (forgot what I had on the account I xfered to my iPhone). Also iTunes doesn't appear to list this information... I wish it did... I would love to have something like an iTunes interface for my AT&T cellular account.
Why is it that everything in life always comes back to World of Warcraft
On a serious note and frustrations aside, 2% is a pretty low failure rate. I think ATT did decent job preparing for launch. I have noticed a signal boost in my neighborhood in Chicago (now only if they would provide service in the subway tunnels).
You can not please everyone all the time. It is difficult enough to please Apple fans half the time.
I heard a rumor that Steve Baumer was complaining because the iPhone didn't run World of Warcraft, no will want the iPhone
But, seriously the Los Angeles Times is reporting 525,000 units sold!
Holy Cow, the most optimistic, over the top "Grand Slam" estimates last week were for 400,000 and you're telling me that they beat it by 100k units? It's amazing they got 98% activated.
Look at this:
Time Magazine: Most Influential Gadgets and Gizmos
Note that a full third of them are Apple gadgets: mac, newton, ipod and... iphone.
Time Magazine: Most Influential Gadgets and Gizmos
Note that a full third of them are Apple gadgets: mac, newton, ipod and... iphone.