iPhone 3G S Customers Reporting Activation Delays

[mwdbruno]

Did you have an AT&T SIM before? If so, simply doing the initial setup without a SIM at the store and replacing the sim later at home would not have worked for you?

I did have an ATT SIM on a Blackberry Pearl.

UPDATE: Girlfriend went to ATT - spent 4 hours there and they could not resolve the issue. Got on the phone with Apple...Apple says the phone is defective -- and DEMANDED $400 (above and beyond what she paid for the 32GM 3GS!) as collateral for a new phone to be shipped to the ATT Store on Monday!!!

Again, this is my first experience with the Iphone and Apple...I'm impressed!

 

[aristotle]

I did have an ATT SIM on a Blackberry Pearl.

UPDATE: Girlfriend went to ATT - spent 4 hours there and they could not resolve the issue. Got on the phone with Apple...Apple says the phone is defective -- and DEMANDED $400 (above and beyond what she paid for the 32GM 3GS!) as collateral for a new phone to be shipped to the ATT Store on Monday!!!

Again, this is my first experience with the Iphone and Apple...I'm impressed!

The logical first step would have been to try that sim first. Maybe your phone is defective but it sounds like you and you gf put the AT&T staffers through the ringer already with a bunch of impatience by trying a bunch of SIMs.

I've never really had any issues with any of my Apple devices but then again, I don't take things so damn seriously. Calm down and you are likely to have better luck in life. Stop trying to force everything to happen on your own schedule. I've found that if I'm in a rush, delays will happen but if I just go with the flow, everything seems to work out much faster.

 

[wkrp28]

Finally Done

My 3GS was delivered by UPS Friday morning. I got the dreaded "this may take some time" message about activation. I waited five hours, called Apple and AT&T, and still no joy. I finally decided to put my 3G SIM into the 3GS. Worked like a charm. Got on a plane to Munich and when I arrived, the 3GS wouldn't connect to any network. When I got to the hotel I dug the 3G out of my bag, popped the SIM, put it back into the 3GS where it came from, and voila, it worked... finally. Not the smoothest iPhone experience I've had by a long shot, but at least it's over.

 

[EmptyG]

Got one via FedEx for my Dad on Friday at 1:30. Everything went smoothly but activation took several hours. I wound up calling AT&T, who did everything they could to get things moving along. They finally transferred me to Apple who did everything they could. More waiting. Did all the reboots, airplane mode, power cycling, etc. Nothing. Finally after about 6 hours, I ejected the SIM again and power cycled and VOILA! Success!

I want to give AT&T and Apple big shouts for their customer support. I could tell they were very overloaded yesterday but everyone I talked to was fantastic and very helpful. We even had to change his iPhone number to a new local area code number and they waived the fee for us because of our wait. Other than the long wait, it went as smooth as it could. I am SO jealous of the 3GS. I have the 3G and love it, but the speed improvements alone make the upgrade worth it. At least it will be when I get upgrade pricing in December!

 

[mwdbruno]

The logical first step would have been to try that sim first. Maybe your phone is defective but it sounds like you and you gf put the AT&T staffers through the ringer already with a bunch of impatience by trying a bunch of SIMs.

I've never really had any issues with any of my Apple devices but then again, I don't take things so damn seriously. Calm down and you are likely to have better luck in life. Stop trying to force everything to happen on your own schedule. I've found that if I'm in a rush, delays will happen but if I just go with the flow, everything seems to work out much faster.

Interesting response...but with all due respect,

I assume it is ok in your book to purchase an item that does not operate and then have a demand from the responsible party not own up to correcting the circumstance?

I have been in retail management and finance operations in high end consumer products for over a decade and would NEVER treat a valued customer with such disregard. At a minimum I require we put the customer first when a problem can not be easily solved. And can't fathom asking a consumer to place a deposit for more than the original purchase price of the merchandise so I could attempt to resolve the defective device that had never been used.

To clarify, as often happens in online forums, it is nearly impossible to show emotion in type...and I'm not "trying to force" and "rush". Simply I/we have paid for an item, that was supposed to be functional upon arrival and have yet to have anyone offer a valid solution that I am satisfied with or an functional piece of merchandise I can utilize. With payment I was inherently expecting the phone to be functional...and it is not. I don't feel that is overly demanding, just a bit of consumer rights.

 

[JRcopper]

iPhone 3G S Customers Reporting Activation Delays

I showed up at 7 AM with a reservation for the new iPhone. The entire experience was a pleasure. My phone was activated within minutes after I paid for it. Since I already use MobileMe I had my more than 1500 Contacts and my calendar updated in the new iPhone less than 5 minutes after it had been activated. I am sure there are problems in some places but I think Apple has done a great job in the launch and the updated device. Now they need to provide apps to run in the background and make the email a bit more user friendly. As of now the email is not better than a Blackberry. Everything else is very good especially the speed of Safari. Almost as good as a new computer faster than old ones.

 

[BrockW15]

Call AT&T

Just call 866.895.1099 and tell them that you heard that you could speed up the activation problem by giving both your IMEI and SIM number. That's how I did it and it worked flawlessly. I had waited almost 24 hours but after calling AT&T, it took less than 5 minutes to activate.

 

[5684697]

Please call At&T at 800 331-0500. 24 hours is enough waiting. Have them use your sim number (Settings>General>About- ECCID) and IMEI (same location) number and have them activate from their system. If it hasn't worked now, you probably have a plan issue, especially if you have multiple smartphones on a family plan.

There was no wait and the process took perhaps ten minutes.

Problem with swapping sims that that if you are going to give the previous phone (thinking 1st gen), it won't work as an "iPhone Touch", unless I am mistaken.

Good luck!

 

[mwdbruno]

Please call At&T at 800 331-0500. 24 hours is enough waiting. Have them use your sim number (Settings>General>About- ECCID) and IMEI (same location) number and have them activate from their system. If it hasn't worked now, you probably have a plan issue, especially if you have multiple smartphones on a family plan.

There was no wait and the process took perhaps ten minutes.

Problem with swapping sims that that if you are going to give the previous phone (thinking 1st gen), it won't work as an "iPhone Touch", unless I am mistaken.

Good luck!

Thanks. Tried that last night with a very nice ATT rep to no avail. I think we've resolved it to being a defective iphone. My next hurdle is trying to figure out how it is just and right to pay a $400 deposit to replace an inoperable iphone we've already paid $300 for...

Thanks again for all of the suggestions!! That is why after lurking for quite a while I signed up for my macrumors account.

 

[robertn409]

ATT Customer Service

I ordered two iPhone GS', one for myself to replace my old iPhone, and one for my wife to replace a Nokia. On the 19th, at 7:00 p.m. I activated my iPhone 3GS 32mb. No problem, about 15 seconds and the "iPhone is activated" screen. Then I went to activate my second iPhone GS 16gb that I bought for my wife, got the 48 hour wait screen! This morning, Saturday, I went to my local ATT store, and was the first customer when they opened at 10:00. Hector Flores, was the customer service rep who worked with me, and I told him that I could not get the phone to activate. He said that I would leave with a working phone. It took about 45 minutes to accomplish, due to the fact that for some reason my account would not allow the change to iPhone from Nokia. It kept trying to set it to Nokia. They ended up calling several people up the service chain of command, and finally got it working. They were courteous to a fault. So I am a "happy camper".

 

[ogdogg]

Just activated mine in the store. Took 2 minutes...

 

[bbbaseball22]

This same thing happened to me and I called at&t and they knew the answer for me. It was because my sim card number wasn't the correct number so this same thing happened to me. If this is happening to you you should call at&t and see if this is your problem.

Hope this helped!

 

[brianmc]

It's faster to finish activation if you go directly to the att store

I had issues with my 3GS activation and I was trying to use another member's upgrade on my family account. Lots of issues with the ATT customer service reps who weren't sure how to handle or they provided conflicting messages. I had ordered mine through the mail to avoid the lines. Luckily I decided to stop by a store after lunch today, seeing that the crowds had died down. They fixed it in no time and the clerk was surprised they didn't instruct me to come into the store. Lesson learned...when your iPhone activation involves more than one account, then go directly to the att store. Oh well, I guess I had to wait 12 hours to enjoy the 3gs. Worth the wait. I just filmed a friend's baby who was born at 1:18 am this morning so it was indeed a great purchase. The video works great on newborns!!! Can you say awww...

 

[Xenious]

Just activated mine at home (had not had a chance yesterday). Mine worked instantly with no delay. Here was the process I used (exactly as the instructions read).

I was upgrading from a 2G

1) Turn off the 2G iPhone
2) Dock and power on 3GS
3) After going through confirmation process of zip, etc undock iPhone
4) Dock iPhone again
5) Activation complete, sync away!

Boo ya!

 

[jeffmo]

i have to say that att customer service has really been on point during this whole process from my personal experience.. i didn't have any problems with the initial activation (thank goodness), but i did have some issues regarding my phone number and the activation of "my wireless" but both issues were taken care of swiftly over the phone in a very courteous manner.. coming from experience with verizon and most recently tmobile, this is hands down the best customer service i've ever received.. ever

kudos for att handling this overloaded work weekend.. i'm looking forward to the next two years and from the looks of things now, i won't need to be carrier hopping anymore

 

[jeffmo]

now if only there was a blogspot app to blog on the go easily.. hmmmm

 

[tennisbum]

No issue here.........

Got mine yesterday morning as I was leaving my place. Didn't have a chance to do anything 'til the evening around 6:30pm. Plugged the new iPhone 3GS in and activated in iTunes without any issues.

 

[guycocoa]

UPS Screwed Up, and Now I'm Screwed

UPS screwed up not Apple.

Look at the title of the post: "UPS Screwed Up and Now I'm Screwed"

The problem with ordering online is that Apple doesn't control the entire experience. They are at the mercy of the delivery companies.

 

[outcast316]

activated..took 39 hours.

 

[COBRASVT]

I had to call twice as I'm new to AT&T and ported over my #. Both times, they answered w/in 3 min's and solved my issues. They had to manually activate me and update my act w the correct options. But was handled quickly.

 

[keith-o]

still waiting..

Been waiting since Friday, 19th at 7pm. Its now Sat at 11:30 and still not activated.

Also, I lost my data plan and VM on my original iphone when I updated to 3.0 Thursday night. That wasnt solved by ATT until saturday at noon.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

While I was in my not so local Apple Store four people came in with #Gs phones that were either DOA or had died within the first hours of use.

One wouldn't charge, one had a dead ear speaker, one wouldn't sync and one was just plain dead, inert...

Is that indicative of a quality issue for the 3Gs iPhone? They evidently had quite a few in with issues. They were booked solid for the weekend and not taking any new reservations at the Genius Bar. They also appeared to have more than the normal number of people working the bar too.

 

[TLewis]

i have to say that att customer service has really been on point during this whole process from my personal experience..

As much as I dislike AT&T, I do have to give them credit for handling customer calls properly. We had to call them twice for activation, once for my 3GS, and once for my wife's, and both calls were reasonably handled, without any long waits. One guy did carry courtesy to ludicrous heights, though: while working on some kind of long activation task, he'd apologize every 30 seconds or so -- and he'd wait for a response from us every time.

Still, in an ideal world, people wouldn't have to call AT&T customer support, and AT&T wouldn't have to spend a major fortune on customer support.

 

[ec51]

Be careful if you popped your old 1st Gen iPhone SIM into your new 3G S in order to make it work. Even though you get an "activated" message, that doesn't mean it switched you over to the new plan. I switched the SIMs last night but my new plan didn't go into effect until today (when I got an email from Apple). Any activity (SMSs and use of the 3G data network) before it truly activated was against the old plan, which didn't have a 3G data plan. If you don't call AT&T about this, you may get charged for that data usage. I called and they assured me they would credit any charges incurred between popping in the new SIM and when their systems were updated.

Ugh...people need to understand what is going on.

Why would this matter? If you had a FIRST gen iPhone then even if your data didnt switch, it would be fine (provided you had the old gen data plan). Just because you have a 3G iphone now, doesnt mean you are using "NEW" data, it just means you are connecting at 3G speeds. The data plan - i.e., the data you are using is the same stuff. Believe me, how do I know - had a friend using a 3G with an old gen iphone for about...a year. No problems...

 

[TLewis]

Been waiting since Friday, 19th at 7pm. Its now Sat at 11:30 and still not activated.

Did you give them a call?

If you haven't, try that. My wife and I both got the "please wait for activation", and we just called one of the numbers listed in this thread. Result: mine got activated within a hour (yesterday), and hers was activated while we were on the phone with the rep (today).