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Did your AT&T service activate right away on your 4S?

How are you guys activating your phones??? Where do I go to "activate" my phone?
 
omg it finally worked. Right now its restoring. Hallelujah! I did it connected to iTunes. I looked down and saw the options to start as a new phone, restore from iCloud, or restore from previous back up. Unfortunately like everyone said the best method is to keep trying. It took about 3.5 hours. Good luck everyone!
 
This is all very strange!! I accidentally set my phone up as a new phone and kinda thought I messed up. (I've never set up a new phone) Decided to just mooch around AT&T's website and found a link to activate my phone. Put in my # and ID verification method and it automatically reflected the correct #'s (IMEI @ ICCID) and just basically said OK and restarted my phone and so far it has been flawless! this was probably around 3:00PM. There were no delays whatsoever on AT&T. I went from a 3GS to a 4S on an individual acct. Everything is working fine! :eek: How did I escape the activation quagmire so easily?
 
I never had an activation screen, it kept skipping right to the restore from back up screen every time I restored my phone. I called customer service and they had me take my sim card from my iPhone 4 and put it in the 4s. I got 3G service immediately and gave the tech my IMEI number and it started working right away. Hope this helps.
 
Mr D - to activate your new phone, turn the phone on by pressing the button on the top of the phone. The white Apple icon will appear. You will then answer a few questions about location, etc. then the phone will tell you to wait while it activates. For me and other here, it never activates, it comes back after a few minutes and tells you it could not activate try again. Eventually it says activation is not working or is partially complete and please check your email. It's all very odd and annoying.
 
dc0511 said:
I never had an activation screen, it kept skipping right to the restore from back up screen every time I restored my phone. I called customer service and they had me take my sim card from my iPhone 4 and put it in the 4s. I got 3G service immediately and gave the tech my IMEI number and it started working right away. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Same thing I did, only I didn't call AT&T. You think its necessary to give them the device IMEI number?
 
Calling AT&T was the biggest waste of time.... I literally feel like my IQ went down 20 points as a result of that conversation. The lady thought she was a comedian, had no idea WTH she was doing, kept saying I needed to update my data plan for my new "iPhone 4" (she couldn't seem to get "4" and "4S" straight) even though I have one of their newer data plans... She asked for my "SIMS" and "IMIE" (she couldn't say those right either) numbers about 20 times. Finally I hung up on her. Sitting there grinding my teeth while she cackles like a moron every few seconds... Argh!!
 
Called AT&T. They inputted my IMEI and sim id number. Activated within 10-15 minutes.
 
uiop. said:
Same thing I did, only I didn't call AT&T. You think its necessary to give them the device IMEI number?
Click to expand...

The customer service woman said it was necessary, it only took about five minutes.

On another another note, after doing so my Serial and IMEI numbers match from the phone to the box, but my ICCID numbers do not match up. Is this a problem?
 
For people who bought through Apple and have AT&T.
Dial 611
Press 1 for your number
Press 3 for upgrading
Tell them that you're upgrading to the 4S
Give them your name and last 4 of social
Supply them with your IMEI/MEID code, It's located at the bottom right hand corner of the box the phone came in.
Supply them with the 20 digit code that is on the new Sim Card, Apple does not give you the "tool" to get the card out this year so you'll need to either use an old one or find something that can do it.
After they've entered the information. Put the card back in, turn off your phone.
Restart your phone after 10-15 min and you should have either more cell reception or be activated.
If you're still not activated at this time, plug it in to your computer and start trying to activate via the Phone and iTunes.
 
I was unable to activate my 4S (pre-ordered from Apple) all day. I finally called AT&T and they said that they can manually register the 4S SIM to my account. She also found that the 2GB ($25/mo) data plan that I had on my iPhone 4 would not work on the new 4S. Apparently they have new data plans and only certain ones work with the 4S. She switched that and I finally was able to get the the screen that says something like "Setup as a new phone", "Restore from iCloud backup", and "Restore from iTunes backup". If you do NOT get to that screen, then I highly recommend you call AT&T and have them verify that your account is setup correctly for the iPhone 4S.

Hope that helps!

Dave
 
Just got off the phone with AT&T and Apple.
AT&T took my Sim # and told me that I was registered with them but not with Apple.

Apple told me that the server was backlogged with 2 million people trying to activate their phones. They said I should just keep trying until it worked. I am not in any queque and I will not be activated until I can get thru the process.

I do not understand how Apple and AT&T can be handling this so badly.
It's been 5 hours for me, couldn't they have update the 3 minute error message by now so that we would have a more realistic idea of what is going on?
Couldn't they have sent out an email explaining the problem?

I'm afraid that with Steve Jobs Apple will become just another spin company.
 
I can't figure out how to turn off wifi-- I don't get a disable wifi option when I try to activate it.
I need to turn off wifi since my wifi network requires you to have an known device
 
I finally get through after trying since 11 am EST, and they say my SIM card does not match the SIM card associated with my account. WOOOHOO!!! :mad:
 
Try setting your phone down and walking away!

I tried and tried for almost 4 hours. Read the thread about being bumped to the end of the list every time you try to activate. I set my 4S down right after my last failed attempt, walked away, tried to text someone 20 minutes later on my iPhone 4 and had no service. Went back to the 4S and tried activating again, went right through.

Purchased my phone through Apple for AT&T.

Try this!!
 
Finally, after almost exactly four hours both new iPhones activated via wireless. When the primary activated (I have two on the Family Plan), the secondary was automatically activated after setup, no waiting on the second one at all.
 
When I called it went nowhere. She implied, many times, that it was all Apple's servers "since they have ATT, Verizon and Sprint" trying to activate today. I didn't bother to ask her why Verizon and Sprint customers aren't having any problems, and she just said to try again later tonight. blah... Verizon for the next one. They should definitely refund the $18 activation fee, at minimum.
 
I doubt the iPhone activation screen would say "Please try again later" if that really brought you back to the end of the queue. Sounds more like they are just saying that so everyone stops hammering the servers.
 
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