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I don't know if I believe them- I kept trying and trying and finally it just happened to go through.
 
LOL There's no line. You either slip into an open slot or don't. They are just trying to ease the traffic.
 
LOL There's no line. You either slip into an open slot or don't. They are just trying to ease the traffic.

Plausible. But recall that during the preorder process Apple knew their interface with AT&T would fail. So they put us in a queue and a few hours later we were able to complete our transactions. Any parallel here?
 
at the bottom of the "still pending" response, it says, "We're sorry. There was a problem connecting to the server. Please try again later."

Wouldn't it say "please wait for activation" if they had a line?
 
I called the activation phone number, inputted my phone number, zip and last 4, and the phone was activated within 3 minutes. Done. This was at 3:30, so it wasn't like I got in early.

What number?

For AT&T: 1-866-895-1099

I called this number, ended up with a live rep. She found an internal "urgent" message in her system, then told me to leave it on, check in an hour or so, don't keep trying, just let it sit for up to a full 2 hours. Don't try to reattempt or power-cycle the phone, she said.

Harumph.
 
After 4 hours of banging on it, I put it down for an hour then tried on the phone first.

Worked first time.
 
4S activation: quit banging on it

Mine has been sitting for over 5 hours and STILL not activated!
 
I'm an iPhone newbie so I hesitated to try the iTunes approach.

After three hours of banging away at activitation via the phone, I loaded up itunes on my computer, plugged the phone in via USB, was prompted to activate from my computer and it worked immediately.

Maybe just beginners luck?!?!
 
I, too, tried through the phone first, no dice. Let it sit for 20min, plugged it into iTunes, worked immediately.

My guess is AT&T people are crossing their fingers and toes hoping their servers don't crash. They aren't built to handle hundreds of thousands of activation requests, and they shouldn't since it would give them another reason to up our bills. One day a year of heavy traffic doesn't give good reason to support that much traffic either.

A friend was having trouble, he just tried the above process, worked instantly.
 
I dutifully waited two hours from my last attempt. Just now I shut down the 4S. Connected it to my computer. iTunes saw it. iTunes took me through the activation process........which worked this time.

This is what others have also reported. Whether waiting and trying again did the trick or whether the system is starting to recover will probably never be known.

I'll ask Siri. Maybe she knows.
 
I dutifully waited two hours from my last attempt. Just now I shut down the 4S. Connected it to my computer. iTunes saw it. iTunes took me through the activation process........which worked this time.

This is what others have also reported. Whether waiting and trying again did the trick or whether the system is starting to recover will probably never be known.

I'll ask Siri. Maybe she knows.

Congrats!! Hope the restore process goes well for you.

And, Siri is a she? ;)
 
YAY finally activated about an hour ago!

And that AT&T guy was full a crap about waiting. I kept unplugging and plugging it back in and it sync'd up after awhile of trying. I woulda been at the "end of the list" if what he said was true and never get activated!
 
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