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First of all wait a while, give it an hour or two. But, if your phone still reads "No Service" as mine did, try turning it off and back on again. That's what worked for me (this was an upgrade, not a new sign-up with AT&T).
 
still waiting...

I've called AT&T they were very helpful but it just still wasn't activating. I've reset it. Completely shut it off. Reset the SIM card. Nothing works. Oh well... also it's getting slightly frustrating reading all the posts of everyone saying how their phone was activated in seconds. <----- I want to go to there.
 
I can't even activate my parent's cheap little Samsung phone because of you guys! :(

lol that actually made me laugh:p

in the UK it took aaaaages. then i switched if off and then back on again and instantly it connected. you guys and gals might want to try switch it on and of every hour or so if you are real desperate
 
My phone was delivered around 3PM EST. Got home and unboxed around 6PM. We were on the phone with AT&T all day (at Best Buy) so I expected similar. Sure enough, iTunes is giving the 48 hour resolution. Kinda sucks.

It seems that turning the phone on/off reinitiates the "activation attempt", or at least I think.

I honestly don't expect it to work until the AM hours. We'll see!
 
I've called AT&T they were very helpful but it just still wasn't activating. I've reset it. Completely shut it off. Reset the SIM card. Nothing works. Oh well... also it's getting slightly frustrating reading all the posts of everyone saying how their phone was activated in seconds. <----- I want to go to there.

*excuse the double post...*

by the way, i didnt deliberately post just after yours saying mine activated in seconds:rolleyes:
 
AT&T and Activation

If any one of you are surprised about having activation problems than your naive. I say this because AT&T has KNOW that 3.0 was going to bring the features users wanted since day 1, and what are they doing, putting it off and than there going to charge an arm and a leg for tethering.

Its Friday night and most of the CSR's are sitting there saying what ever the email they got from there supervisiors sent out to them to tell people that call in that "OUR NETWORK CANNOT HANDLE ALL OF THIS AT ONCE" well that's what it should say.

Goto Howard Forums and read the AT&T posts. Sad to say but they could care less when you get activated, you already paid the money and agreed to a 2 year contract.

I sincerely wish you all the best with your activations :)
 
I'll never understand the need for folks to rush out on release day for this kind of stuff. That's three years straight now there have been issues yet people are still getting caught in it.

I don't know - unless you don't have a phone already, what's a two or three day wait?
 
Anyone with an OLD iPhone 3G - should just use their OLD SIM.

The whole activation process has nothing to do with the actual phone. It's all about the SIM card. I just popped in my old sim and bypassed the whole activation crap. Bam - working within two minutes.

Yes, you can do that. But if you already "started" the activation process through iTunes then when your new sim is finally activated it should cause your 3Gs to go "no service" until you pop its original sim.
 
7 hours, still not activated. I called and the CSR said there was no way to speed up the process.

That is not completely true but they are not going to bend the rules just for you.

They can take your request and bump it to the front of the line. Several years ago when my parents were upgrading my bothers and my phones over to ATT from sprint it was taking a little longer than it should (normal a 2-3 min set up for new customers) and it got busy. They guy at the store called it in and told them what was going on and boom we went to the frount of the line and cut in front of everyone.

Now I would think for something like a mass hit with the iPhones get I would say as ATT set the rule down hard and say sorry no we can not do anything because if they started bumping people they would be slammed with calls about it.

Simple fact is it is not cost effect for ATT to have to prep their systems for the slammed like this for only 1-2 days a year. It cost to much money to have the extra hardware on hand. Renting it still would cost them way to much money because they would have to rent it for quite some time to have enough time to prep the extra servers and work them in and then all the time removing the extra servers. It is not cost effective.

None of the carriers could handle the spike in demand. We are seeing all over the world people having long delays.
 
My boss and I pre-ordered our iPhone 3GS models on the announcement day and received them this afternoon... I went to activate my and it gave me the "48 hour" notice. He was going to wait to activate his but gave it a try anyways - went through instantly.

I waited and waited, rebooted a few times and then called AT&T. The first person transfered me to Apple... who transfered me back to AT&T. I spoke to two people at AT&T, neither one of them knew anything about iPhones... I kind of assisted them but played a bit dumb (didnt want to tell them howto do their job). Anyways it turns that a new IMEI number had been assigned to my account today... it was the wrong one! The sim card number was also wrong!

They fixed them and my new 3GS was activated :)

I think alot of people will have to call in incase the IMEI/Sim card mismatches are whats causing the activation issues.
 
I connected to iTunes and got the same message.... I then called att and talked to a csr who had me do the following 3 steps which didn't work ;(

1.) Power off phone, take sim out for 30sec, power back on... and... no worky!

2.) Then the csr said they would resend the activation... waiting... waiting ... waiting... and no worky!

3.) Turn off phone, wait 30sec, then power back on... and... no worky!

So anyways... I ended up restoring again through iTunes and it activated immediately. Now it could have been a coincidence but who cares! Good luck!
 
Time to use my 30 day parachute!

Sad to say but they could care less when you get activated, you already paid the money and agreed to a 2 year contract.

I sincerely wish you all the best with your activations :)

Actually, I can bail on ATT and APPLE. It JUST DOESN'T WORK, and it has not since 10 A.M. It is not worth the money, after all it's just a phone, or actually it's just a paperweight. I'm calling now...6..1..1...........
 
That is not completely true but they are not going to bend the rules just for you.

They can take your request and bump it to the front of the line. Several years ago when my parents were upgrading my bothers and my phones over to ATT from sprint it was taking a little longer than it should (normal a 2-3 min set up for new customers) and it got busy. They guy at the store called it in and told them what was going on and boom we went to the frount of the line and cut in front of everyone.

Now I would think for something like a mass hit with the iPhones get I would say as ATT set the rule down hard and say sorry no we can not do anything because if they started bumping people they would be slammed with calls about it.

Simple fact is it is not cost effect for ATT to have to prep their systems for the slammed like this for only 1-2 days a year. It cost to much money to have the extra hardware on hand. Renting it still would cost them way to much money because they would have to rent it for quite some time to have enough time to prep the extra servers and work them in and then all the time removing the extra servers. It is not cost effective.

None of the carriers could handle the spike in demand. We are seeing all over the world people having long delays.

I was not asking them to bend the rules just for me..I was only hoping to expedite the process.
 
Unbelievable

The whole process today took less than 45 minutes to drive to a store, wait in line, get a new iPhone, and activate it right there in the store and start texting. I don't get it. No issues for me at all, last year 3G was a debacle.
 
Anyone with an OLD iPhone 3G - should just use their OLD SIM.

The whole activation process has nothing to do with the actual phone. It's all about the SIM card. I just popped in my old sim and bypassed the whole activation crap. Bam - working within two minutes.

Um no ... your 100% wrong ... if you pre-ordered from apple the devices serial gets paired with the phone # ... AKA I have the old 3g and the new 3gs swapping sims does nothing yet the old one works fine with the old sim in it ... This was found out as apple switched me and another guys phone so i texted him and yep that was the case we are both experiencing this problem even with an attempted sim switch for both of us it won't work... When I plug the phone into itunes with any sim in it it registers his # ... that is how I know / assume yes I know ... that the serial is paired with the phone #...
 
To all those whining just take a step back and think of all the children around the world that have nothing to eat tonight and are starving to death.

I don't mean to be dramatic, but please take a step back and reflect. At the end of the day this is just one very minor inconvenience in a world of hate and pain.

Relax.
 
That is not completely true but they are not going to bend the rules just for you.

They can take your request and bump it to the front of the line.

That must be what they did for me then. I had waited about 3 hours for activation, then called AT&T. I was extremely nice and said I was hoping I could get them to push out my activation so I wouldn't be without a phone for 48 hours. She took my SIM number and activated it right then. After a power cycle, the phone was activated.

They are definitely allowed to manually activate it immediately. I wonder if the people being told they can't speed it up start off demanding things instead of politely asking.
 
It has been 11 hours and my 3GS is still NOT activated!

Then I insert my old SIM from 1st gen iphone, it works. So I think I will continue to use the old SIM with the new 3GS until ATT stop it (Hopefully it means the new SIM is ready!!).
 
Yes, because Verizon would somehow magically be able to handle the activation process better than AT&T can...

I doubt any other carrier has ever had to handle as many activations in one day as AT&T does with the iPhone.

exactly, the volume on sales day for each iphone has been tremendous and makes other carriers fearful of the day that phone reaches them...
 
To all those whining just take a step back and think of all the children around the world that have nothing to eat tonight and are starving to death.

I don't mean to be dramatic, but please take a step back and reflect. At the end of the day this is just one very minor inconvenience in a world of hate and pain.

Relax.
I have a job/business and work my a$$ off for the money I have. So, when I fork out $400 for a new phone and I have to wait 48hrs Im going to be pissed. That's the end of that story plain and simple.
 
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