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AT&T Activations Overloaded

M

MartyF81

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 5, 2010
339
281
Chicago IL
I have been trying to Activate my wife's iPhone 5 for the past 6 hours.

AT&T told me to just leave it on and it would activate in 1.5 hours. 6 hours later still nothing.

AT&T support is telling me they are overloaded from activations and that I just have to wait.

Is any one else experiencing this? I know it has happened in the past.... but this is the 6th time they are doing this..... shouldn't they be prepared for this by now?
 
MartyF81 said:
I have been trying to Activate my wife's iPhone 5 for the past 6 hours.

AT&T told me to just leave it on and it would activate in 1.5 hours. 6 hours later still nothing.

AT&T support is telling me they are overloaded from activations and that I just have to wait.

Is any one else experiencing this? I know it has happened in the past.... but this is the 6th time they are doing this..... shouldn't they be prepared for this by now?
Click to expand...

Having the same issue....

Received my iP5 today (preorder) and activated it about 4 hours ago and still can't make or receive calls or access data via LTE :mad:

At least I know now that I probably don't have a hardware issue ...

What ever makes me more pissed off is my iP4s is now deactivated and I can't make/receive calls :mad::mad:

Called up AT&T and they also told me that they are experienced delayed activations. After complaining the representative gave me a $55 credit towards my bill :D
 
I have the same problem, can't call or use safari. Everything is fine on wifi.

It shows AT&T and 4G on the top when not in wifi.
 
I had an activation issue on launch day. Chatted with an AT&T rep the next day and got my phone activate within 10 minutes.

Try it. May work for you
 
Something doesnt seem right.
I had my i5 activated in minutes and that's on launch day. Now a week later and they're saying they're overloaded?
You might want to call back and speak to a different rep that knows what they're doing.
Many of them will tell you anything just to get you off the phone. It should not take that long. Have them look into your account and make sure they have everything correct on their end. Imei number, sim card number, correct data plan etc...
 
Last edited:
I had the same issue and AT&T told me the same thing. But when I went to the store it turned out they had installed the wrong SIM card. Once the SIM card was fixed it activated in one minute.
 
Spent an hour on the phone with AT&T. All they did was blame Apple and tell me to go into an AT&T store and have the SIM replaced. I got off the phone and did the following on my iPhone 5:

1. Turn new iPhone off then on again.
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to General.
4. Go to Reset.
5. Select "Erase all Content and Settings".
6. Confirm "yes" to both confirmations that you want to do this action.
7. Allow the phone to erase completely, shutdown and re-start automatically.
8. After the full re-start, your iPhone5 will be back up and at the language screen, like out of the box.
9. Go through the activation steps as normal and prompted. (I went through an iCloud backup for prior iPhone).
10. Phone should have complete service after these steps.

Note: A few folks who have done this had to do a full wipe more than once. I had no problem with 2 new phones
first restore shot. Good luck!
 
rmastbro said:
Spent an hour on the phone with AT&T. All they did was blame Apple and tell me to go into an AT&T store and have the SIM replaced. I got off the phone and did the following on my iPhone 5:

1. Turn new iPhone off then on again.
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to General.
4. Go to Reset.
5. Select "Erase all Content and Settings".
6. Confirm "yes" to both confirmations that you want to do this action.
7. Allow the phone to erase completely, shutdown and re-start automatically.
8. After the full re-start, your iPhone5 will be back up and at the language screen, like out of the box.
9. Go through the activation steps as normal and prompted. (I went through an iCloud backup for prior iPhone).
10. Phone should have complete service after these steps.

Note: A few folks who have done this had to do a full wipe more than once. I had no problem with 2 new phones
first restore shot. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thank you sooo much! This worked. I was hesitating to do this all night because I was afraid it would cause it to start over. I tried it this morning and it worked in a minute.

Thank you so much!
 
I was just on the phone with tech support. Having the same issue. She said it is currently a "known issue". Phone shows network, and bars but I am unable to place or receive calls, texts or access the internet. Says I am not subscribed to a cellular network.

Tech support said it was a problem with a "switch" and could be 24 to 48 hours. I told them this was ridiculous I have been a loyal att customer for many years. I could just cancel and walk in to Verizon and walk out with a working phone.

She offered my a $100 credit for not being able to use my phone. So frustrating. I have to be on the road very late tonight, and don't have another phone as backup.

----------

This worked for me, thank you!!

Also before when I tried to activate I set up my home wifi. This time I skipped wifi setup and "forced" it to try to activate over cellular.

Tried once and couldn't connect to finish

Turned off my phone and turned back on. Tried again (still forcing cellular and skipping wifi)


It had trouble connecting with my apple id so I said "skip this step"

BINGO it worked. I didn't have to do a full wipe more than once, but I DID have to try to connect several times.

Hope this helps someone


rmastbro said:
Spent an hour on the phone with AT&T. All they did was blame Apple and tell me to go into an AT&T store and have the SIM replaced. I got off the phone and did the following on my iPhone 5:

1. Turn new iPhone off then on again.
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to General.
4. Go to Reset.
5. Select "Erase all Content and Settings".
6. Confirm "yes" to both confirmations that you want to do this action.
7. Allow the phone to erase completely, shutdown and re-start automatically.
8. After the full re-start, your iPhone5 will be back up and at the language screen, like out of the box.
9. Go through the activation steps as normal and prompted. (I went through an iCloud backup for prior iPhone).
10. Phone should have complete service after these steps.

Note: A few folks who have done this had to do a full wipe more than once. I had no problem with 2 new phones
first restore shot. Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
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