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

Got home from work about45 minutes ago and started trying once I got it all unboxed. Eventually called AT&T on my iPhone 4 and as I was waiting for a representative, the call dropped. Went to look at the 4S and it was activated.
 
chickpea319 said:
I registered to just tell you thank you! I had called at&t before and they were no help. I called back and asked them to check my SIM number and IMEI and they were both wrong! SO, if you really aren't having luck, make them check yours. I have a feeling a lot of people aren't getting it done because of this.

While I was on hold with her, fortunately after I gave her the numbers, we got disconnected somehow. She obviously went ahead and fixed it because while I was calling back my old phone cut off and the new one was ready to go.
Click to expand...


I don't get it... I called at&t about an hour ago to give them my sim and imei #. I still can't activate it. :mad:
 
First, Received 4S from Apple 1PM
Second, Tried everything. SIMS's, WiFi, cellular, iTunes, magic links.
Rain dance, hokey pokey

Nothing worked.

Always get. Number, zip, ss#, accept terms and then the 3 Minuit wait.
Followed by you will get an email, servers busy.

Only have 1 Bar of 3G service on 4S while everything else (3GS, iPads) are at least 3-4 bars.

SO a little birdy said.
Turn your old phone and your new phone OFF, power down, completely off.

Wait one hour.

Turn OLD phone back on, NO SERVICE, this is a good sign that the number has been released.

Wait 1/2 hour and turned the new 4S on.

NOW I get 3 Bars and a prompt for
New phone, Cloud restore, iTune restore.
Its now 5:45 so it only took 4 plus hours to kick the process off.
Thank God I wasn't spinning my wheels in some store.

Picked cloud restore and 10 mins later it rebooted and prompted for
set a Pass code, and started populating and loading APPs on screen.
When I picked cloud it wanted WiFi so I added my ssid and password.

Never got an email message HOWEVER there is a que.
If you got an "email when activated message servers busy" you should be in the line.

Nothing seems to make it any faster.
Leaving the old phone on seems to make it slower but this is unconfirmed.

Not happy with the frustration of AT&T.
 
Fullmetul said:
Not too sure if it this is what did it but after 5 hours of trying to activate it I picked up my old 3GS and started to check voicemail just to get some cellular activity. Next try after that and success! 4S is now activated! :D

I'm an ATT customer bought through apple, if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...

I think this may have worked for me too. However, I only tried this after attempting to activate the traditional way about 1 hour ago. So perhaps it was just coincidence?

Restoring from iCloud now...
 
Received mine around 12:30pm today, did not activate until around 2pm, no issue, all done wirelessly (no need connect to iTune).
 
I'm working. Getting ready to introduce myself to my new friend, Siri.

I kept shutting it down and turning back on. 5 hrs later...it worked.
 
spar13 said:
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.
Click to expand...

heh that sort of worked, but not the way I expected it to. I've been trying to activate mine since 12:45pm (it's now 3:15pm), and finally decided to try your method.

I dialed 611 on my iphone 3gs, then 1 (use my number), then 3 (upgrading), and then I got a message that they were experiencing longer than usual wait times and put me on hold. About 30 seconds later I got a "call failed" message and then the signal on my 3gs went to "no signal." I then tried activating through iTunes again and then it worked.
 
gillybean said:
heh that sort of worked, but not the way I expected it to. I've been trying to activate mine since 12:45pm (it's now 3:15pm), and finally decided to try your method.

I dialed 611 on my iphone 3gs, then 1 (use my number), then 3 (upgrading), and then I got a message that they were experiencing longer than usual wait times and put me on hold. About 30 seconds later I got a "call failed" message and then the signal on my 3gs went to "no signal." I then tried activating through iTunes again and then it worked.
Click to expand...

I did the same thing...and it worked.
 
So, an update.

I had last decided to just leave it, after getting a message saying it was "still pending."

went out and lived my life. at one point, there was suddenly no service anymore on my old phone.

when I got home, the message was still on the screen, so I re-booted the new phone and it was activated!

in the process now of restoring from backup. I don't ever plan on keeping my data in the cloud, even if I use the cloud for some syncing.

so, 7 hours later, it works. not bad, considering it's the heart of the storm in terms of timing. I'd advise people to try it once and then let it be.

perhaps if I hadn't kept trying all day, it might have happened sooner. there has to be a queue, as mine was activated eventually without me obsessively trying.
 
Mine finally went through.

After yet another failed attempt, I got 3 bars and then "No Service". I tried again with WiFi still on and then it went through.

Good luck to those still waiting.
 
After about 3 hours..I decided to leave my 4S be for 10 minutes...While I was searching something on my i4, the service cut off, and I picked up my 4S and it was time to set up...So everybody out there, if you get the message about the email, let your phone be, and wait for the service to go out on your current phone...This should be a sign thats it time for you to activate.
 
So here's my situation....preordered through Apple....through another line on my account that's upgradeable....got my phone at 10:30 EST this morning...called to make sure they switch over to my line and they said everything is switched over....when I activate it still shows the line that I ordered under...called AT&T back and they said it's Apple because everything on AT&T's servers show the device attached to the correct line....been on hold with Apple for 45 minutes to get to somebody and now he has me on hold.....7 and a half hours

Oh and my old phone doesn't work either
 
Argh... finally lost service on my old phone and thought I was getting somewhere.

Went through activation again on my phone and it said "The SIM card in your iPhone does not match the SIM card associated with your account."

Anyone else had this happen, and if so, what is the solution!?
 
Woo!! Finally!! That was pretty painful... took 6 hrs. Went to at&t store who told me to call Apple. Called Apple, and they told me to wait. Then I called at&t to give them sim and imei number. An hour after I talked to at&t, the old phone stopped getting service. So I rebooted the 4S and plugged it in to my computer to activate. I'm glad it finally works!
 
I finally activated my phone.

It was pending like everyone else and decided to hard reset my phone and it activated via iTunes afterwards.

Hope that helps some people. :D
 
Finally!! Keep fighting the good fight everyone,... if you loose service on the old phone, that's a good indication that things are about to work for you. Two resets and 4 tries after that happened, I'm up and running.

By the way, I believe that turning the phone off and on again between activation attempts is important.
 
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