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iPhone 4S Launch to Double AT&T's Record for Activations
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I pre-ordered with Apple in the early hours of the 7th (2am-ish). When I went back to complete the order, the first phone I tried did not show the grandfathered 200-message plan for $5, so I called AT&T. They offered to redo my order with them and guarantee the message plan. I was nervous about that because I expected the very thing you are going through now.
The CSR was extremely helpful though and offered instead to put a note in my account that I would choose "no messaging plan" on the Apple store and if my messaging plan changed that AT&T would revert it. He made the note for both of our lines and I completed my order through Apple.
When I tried the second iPhone order completion it showed the proper messaging plan. It turns out that one phone has "iPhone Messaging 200" as its messaging plan and the other has "Messaging 200". The terms are identical on the two plans, but they have different identifiers in AT&T's system. Apparently, Apple's online store was not coded to handle one of the identifiers.
Anyway, after I get my phones activated today I need to confirm the computers don't mess with my messaging plans. I'm really sorry to hear about what you are going through -- I've been through that scenario with MacMall twice before and I no longer buy stuff from them because of that and because of how they screwed up my sister-in-law's macbook pro order.
Good luck with your iPhone, I hope it comes soon.
Crazy Iphone day
My wife first tried activating her phone at 12:30, and it just went thru at 5:15.
Went thru the activation process myself at around 12:45, still no dice yet as I type this.
On a side note, we ordered our phones thru Apple last Friday, and received them by UPS this morning around 9:30am. Everything went real smooth.
I decided to cruze up to the local AT&T store and browse for a new case while I waited for activation to go thru.
I arrive at AT&T to a few standing outside, one guy standing directly in front of the door. Told the person excuse me I would like to enter the store. To which he replied the store is currently at capacity, and I would have to wait 45 minutes to an hour to enter. I look thru the window couldn't have been more then 15 people in the store at the time. So I tell the gentleman that I am not a preorder but a case browser. Guy still wouldn't let me in saying its an hour wait "chuckle".
Cruzed over to the local Apple store that had to have AT LEAST 100 people inside at the time. Picked up my white Mophie Juice pack, and left in under 5 minutes.
Point to all this is the local AT&T store here is a complete JOKE!!
My wife first tried activating her phone at 12:30, and it just went thru at 5:15.
Went thru the activation process myself at around 12:45, still no dice yet as I type this.
On a side note, we ordered our phones thru Apple last Friday, and received them by UPS this morning around 9:30am. Everything went real smooth.
I decided to cruze up to the local AT&T store and browse for a new case while I waited for activation to go thru.
I arrive at AT&T to a few standing outside, one guy standing directly in front of the door. Told the person excuse me I would like to enter the store. To which he replied the store is currently at capacity, and I would have to wait 45 minutes to an hour to enter. I look thru the window couldn't have been more then 15 people in the store at the time. So I tell the gentleman that I am not a preorder but a case browser. Guy still wouldn't let me in saying its an hour wait "chuckle".
Cruzed over to the local Apple store that had to have AT LEAST 100 people inside at the time. Picked up my white Mophie Juice pack, and left in under 5 minutes.
Point to all this is the local AT&T store here is a complete JOKE!!
AT&T has activated phones? This is news to me.
Easy jabs at AT&T aside, my activation took a little over 3 hours. I can understand why their system was probably bottlenecked for most of today. The last UPS deliveries will be made in the next 2 hours and after that things should improve gradually. If you have an older iPhone working just fine, I recommending waiting until after 7 Pacific so you can avoid the irritation I endured.
Easy jabs at AT&T aside, my activation took a little over 3 hours. I can understand why their system was probably bottlenecked for most of today. The last UPS deliveries will be made in the next 2 hours and after that things should improve gradually. If you have an older iPhone working just fine, I recommending waiting until after 7 Pacific so you can avoid the irritation I endured.
Trying to activate now and failing both on phone and through iTunes. Is AT&T hosting these activation servers in India or something? That's the only good explanation I could come up with. After all these years they still can't get it together. I encourage all of you to write emails to customer service and complaint, ask for credits or something, they need to do something for us!
Mike
Mike
honestly I like to bust on at&****.. but here in the DC area I have never had a reception problem except in front of the pentagon on 395 and a small stretch on 66 other then that they have been great. I have never had a problem with billing or anything. This is my first experience with having a problem. I agree with the poster above this is an apple / at@t problem they shouldn't launch everything on the same day that was really stupid
Wow, it just worked the second time around via the phone. Maybe the Indian boys heard me and patched me through
-Mike
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Open letter to you. You are not one of only ten customers now, you are one among millions. No matter how much care and preparation is taken, the overwhelming popularity of the products continues to swamp the servers. Either dont buy on launch day or realize that this is how it will be and relax.
johncrab said:
Open letter to you. You are not one of only ten customers now, you are one among millions. No matter how much care and preparation is taken, the overwhelming popularity of the products continues to swamp the servers. Either dont buy on launch day or realize that this is how it will be and relax.
hmmm... that makes sense. Can't activate at the drop of a dime, you are willing to go to a WAY inferior network, running half duplex, and live with that for two year. LOL, might be a tad bit of an over-reaction that you will regret quickly.
If we all use this philosophy, we wouldn't wait in line for the iPhone, we would just go buy a droid and live with a pathetically inferior product.
I doubt there are microsoft employees planting complaints. It's just geek rage from fanboys. it's the same with gamers. Countless steam members signed a Left4Dead 2 petition (I'm not going to buy, it should be free DLC) and then on launch day all those steam members were playing it.
now that they have doubled the number of people on the network I wonder if its going to be SLOWER than corky at a rocket building festival..
Not lucky, just not one of the 30 people who complain. The other 200000 are happy as Detroit fans this year.
I agree I don't think MS workers have time to plant these types of articles they are too busy trying to fix microsofts errors
Yes, I agree with you. A big rush like this happens once a year. Why doesn't AT&T make the investment in their infrastructure so that it has the capacity to handle a million activations over a 10-hour period. I, for one, would gladly pay much more in my monthly plan to finance the building of that infrastructure by next year so that it is ready for the next iPhone launch. This is simple; they would have a whole set of servers and infrastructure standing by that they only use on iPhone launch day.
Come on AT&T, get it together.
Forget about the 4S being tagged a flop, remember when. Verizon iPhone was supposed to mark the death of AT&T. Now AT&T has two competitors and there is still plenty of business to go around for all. I have no love for AT&T or any other CellCo but way too many people here base truth on their own personal experience rather than trying to look beyond it for competing answers.
I tried refreshing using itunes and my phone for 6 hours. Finally, I read a few people were getting it 15-20 minutes after they activate and it says it will send an email...
I got to the will send you an email screen on my phone and itunes then I did nothing for about 20-25 minutes. My 3GS went to no service then I tried it one more time on my 4S and it went right through.
I was spamming the activate all day but as soon as I stopped and waited it finally let me through. Hope this helps.
I got to the will send you an email screen on my phone and itunes then I did nothing for about 20-25 minutes. My 3GS went to no service then I tried it one more time on my 4S and it went right through.
I was spamming the activate all day but as soon as I stopped and waited it finally let me through. Hope this helps.
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Let's be honest. It's been 3 years in a row of activation meltdowns on AT&T. Did you REALLY think this year would be any different? I'm not eligible until Nov 25th, and since I lost my IP4 I have to get the 4s. Been using my original iPhone 1 for the last 3 months. Uhhgggg.. If I still had my IP4 I would probably skip this generation tho.
Uh, I'm living in a science fiction movie -- people, trust me, look beyond the launch glitches that come with a wildly anticipated device. That's just the same old same old. We're on the cusp of the *real* start of the information age where talking to a device isn't stupid. More generally, we're getting to the point where we don't have to meet technology half-way (or three-quarters way, or more) to get the transformative (revolutionary, magical, whatever) benefits. It's all starting to tip our way.
Carp about activation delays all you want --hey I like to bit h about everything--but now, finally, we're taking the next real step.
Carp about activation delays all you want --hey I like to bit h about everything--but now, finally, we're taking the next real step.
FYI - they jet changed the verbiage to tell you to restart your phone and try again. My wifes then said that there was still a delay activating but it allowed her to use the phone and restore from iTunes or iCloud. Seems like they know they are having trouble and put in a change to allow the phones to work in the meantime.....but not as phones.
Activated it by dialing 611 on my other iphone (ATT), took 5 minutes. Yeah, not what you wanted to hear.
Now trying to decide between Apple Care or the ATT 'if you mess it up we replace it' plan Ohhhhhh the decisions.
Lets see, spend $10 million dollars so that 1 day a year, 10 percent of the activation's are not slow/delayed. Since 2007 AT&T has grown an unbelievable network to accommodate the unimaginable growth spawned by the iPhone. Glad they are putting their money into the network and not "activation devices"
