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

3 hours later, turned off my old 3GS, plugged the new one into iTunes, and I'm in!
 
Seems to be no trouble now. I just unboxed my 4S at 5:30 Central, activation was done in an instant. No trouble at all.
 
No tricks

Mine finally worked, after 3 hours of trying. I don't think that there are any tricks to making it happen. I didn't do anything different, I waited a while (which I don't think did anything) and tried again and it worked. It seems that lots are going through now. Good luck! I can't wait for it to be finish backing up, I am so excited.
 
I just started to get the error that I have the incorrect SIM. I just got off the phone with AT&T and tried to do an upgrade swap, could that have something to do with it?
 
Not sure whats going on with mine.

Said it would take a while to activate it but if I disconnected and re connected I could sync. I synced and now it says ATT 3G but cant make calls.

Also my iphone 4 is still working, I dont think this is a good sign.

Any ideas?
 
Got mine at 10:05 this morning, it's now 3:53 and I finally got it registered and am now restoring from backup.

My long nightmare is nearly over!
 
Aha-- the failure message has changed!

"We're sorry. There was a problem completing your activation.

You can restart the activation process by turning your iPhone off and on. If activating via iTunes, please disconnect and reconnect your iPhone."

That's a very different message from what I was receiving before.


UPDATE:

I turned the phone off and on, as the message said... and it activated first try!

This was all over-the-air.


FURTHER UPDATE (next day, Saturday 15 October):

My wife was too tired to deal with the other new 4S that arrived, for her, yesterday, so we did the activation thing today.

Annnnd.... no problem! Activated first time. Took maybe 45 seconds.
 
Last edited:
Mine just went through as well. I just kept trying. My error message was different right before I finally got through. It started to say there was a problem with my activation and I should turn off my phone, etc. That happened 2-3 times and then it finally went through!
 
jrlepage said:
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!?
Click to expand...

Call At&T. I got the message that they basically weren't accepting calls so I hit 2 instead of 3 (upgrade) and it let me through.
 
Solution

Leave old phone OFF for an hour. So it can release the number, then try again with 4S on wireless. Worked for me.
 
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...

Did exactly this, Gave it about 20 minutes, went through the activation on the phone again, and success!! Thank You
 
Used the email ATT Sent me when I ordered. Activated following the link.
30 seconds later it was complete.
1 minute later made my first call.
 
How I upgraded my Apple purchased iPhone 4s via ATT

I was not sure how to do this as I synched my new phone to iTunes on my Mac and got all my songs, photos, and apps (minus folders) to the new phone but the phone service was not working. iTunes did not give me any prompts on this (although some seem to report that it does in this thread?). So I called ATT on my old iPhone 4 that was still active and got the service operator within 3 minutes. She called me back on another line and asked me to transfer the micro sim card to the new phone. Then I had to punch in a code to get her the IMEI number. A few seconds later she asked me to make a test call and BOOM! it was working!!!

This all transpired at 7pm Eastern US time. Pretty simple, once I made contact with ATT. I do have Premier service but not sure if that matters! :D
 
I literally have no idea what the hell you guys are doing...

I turned on my phone, not connected to the computer, set everything up. Done.

connected it to the computer... nothing happened.

I go on ATT's activation website and put in my phone number and billing zip code... go through the process. DONE (this literally took 2 minutes)

My phone got activated right away.

I am in Los Angeles.

Not sure what the hell ya'll are running into.
 
Anybody here got their phone working that ordered it under a different line? my phone still says the old number even though AT&T tells me that the sim is on the new line I'm trying to activate....WHAT THE EFF??
 
Apple is the Issue not At&T

The problem is for users who ordered via Apple not from AT&T directly.
 
I keep consistently getting the "This SIM does not match your account" message - should I call AT&T or Apple? :( frustrating
 
The funny thing is, as soon as UPS delivered my phone, I kept retrying to activate as I was reading through this forum - Must have done it 30 times max. Then I had to go somewhere to meet someone for 2 hours, and afterwards I decided to head to AT&T store to see if I can activate it..I even was trying it in the car on the way here. As I'm waiting in the store, I try one last time in the store and bam, I got it activated. Ha!
 
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