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iPhone Activation Issues

People having problems with Verizon...this post is from earlier in the thread, so it might help:

ThanatosId said:
I'm not really patient when I am eager to try something new...Never has that been more true than tonight with the iPhone. Waiting 24 hours for Verizon to cancel my plan wasn't an option. I called AT&T to expedite the process (luckily I got mine fast and called at 6:15 before the insanity). They called Verizon to port the old number to them. Verizon responded that my account number was incorrect and refused to work with them. I called Verizon and discovered that there was a mystery "0" that has never shown up on any statement in front of the account number. I called AT&T and gave them the update. They then quickly activated my phone. I would have never known this if not for calling Verizon. Please call and check for yourself...otherwise it could be more than 24 hours of looking at that brilliantly beautiful iPhone and not using it.

P.S. AT&T has been great thus far and incredibly helpful and professional. Verizon...not so much!!!
Click to expand...

Don't know if that will solve everyone's problems, but I figured I'd repost it just in case it helps someone that missed it.

Good Luck!
 
Just FINALLY GOT MY EMAIL

Seven hours to the dot .... I've got a once AT&T wireless number that was converted to a cingular business account.

Damn finally can play with it ... good luck all.
 
Im on a small 4 person business account plan with no added benifts, simply a plan that is exactly the same as a family plan but it is billed through my dads business so he can claim it as an expense. Our plan is considered a "small business" account with ATT.

I bought an iphone today after having been told it would work with our account and now I am totally screwed and have been working for 7 hours on trying to get it activated!

Has anyone figured out what to do about this yet??
 
it seems obvious

that verion is giving at&t a hard time to port the numbers. Those who are not taking their old numbers with them do not seem to have any waiting issues. What a weired move of verizon, sprint etc.
 
mati said:
that verion is giving at&t a hard time to port the numbers. Those who are not taking their old numbers with them do not seem to have any waiting issues. What a weired move of verizon, sprint etc.
Click to expand...

I agree, and that is ********.
 
mati said:
that verion is giving at&t a hard time to port the numbers. Those who are not taking their old numbers with them do not seem to have any waiting issues. What a weired move of verizon, sprint etc.
Click to expand...

You may be right that other carriers are slowing this down, but I'm trying to activate as an existing AT&T customer -- and I've been waiting for over an hour so far, too.
 
I have two lines on my account. One of them, my line, is an old AT&T "Blue" (pre-Cingular) charter plan, and the other is my wife's Cingular line that we started a year ago. My account also gets me a business discount of around 20% per month.

I tried to activate mine at around 9pm PST. First I was told I would have to give up my business discount. Fine. Then I was given the "Your activation requires more time to complete" screen and was told to wait for an email. three and a half hours later... nothing.

But when I tried to activate my wife's phone, at 9:10pm PST, it worked almost right away! I'm guessing it's because she's not part of the "old AT&T" like I am.

Anyone else having this kind of problem?
 
iPhone now active after 6 hours

I just wanted to let everyone know my iPhone was just activated a little over 6 hours after first receiving the 'more time required' message in itunes.

Also my number has successfully ported from verizon despite originally getting the 24 hour waiting period email from AT&T.

So there is hope that the cogs are in motion... albeit, slowly.

-- Mike
 
mmoulton said:
I just wanted to let everyone know my iPhone was just activated a little over 6 hours after first receiving the 'more time required' message in itunes.

Also my number has successfully ported from verizon despite originally getting the 24 hour waiting period email from AT&T.

So there is hope that the cogs are in motion... albeit, slowly.

-- Mike
Click to expand...

This is promising news. Thanks for the update.
 
skinnylegs said:
......still isn't working for me.
Click to expand...

mmartahus said:
Im on a small 4 person business account plan with no added benifts, simply a plan that is exactly the same as a family plan but it is billed through my dads business so he can claim it as an expense. Our plan is considered a "small business" account with ATT.

I bought an iphone today after having been told it would work with our account and now I am totally screwed and have been working for 7 hours on trying to get it activated!

Has anyone figured out what to do about this yet??
Click to expand...

Same here. Can't be done. I've been screaming for hours. After many calls prior to purchasing phone and being told all was Ok - now it's not.

They say it's Apple's fault. There are making demands that it's a personal (social #, not taxID) account. Of course we can't even change the account type because plan no longer exists and we'd lose 9000 rollover minutes. And my husband wants his business name showing on caller ID.
Grrrrrrrrrrr. We pay 100/mo already - I'm not splitting off and paying another 80.
Almost in tears but the phone is being returned tomorrow.
 
stil stuck on....
please wait while ATT&T verifies you account information.
this may take up to 1 minute

i have switch my acount to a consumer account family plan 3 hours ago.
 
I had no issues with activation. It took only 5 minutes and I kept my T-Mobile number. About 45 minutes after that I got a conformation email for AT&T that I was now able to receive incoming calls from my transfered number.
 
So unless it is activated it is basically a brick. I guess this means you aren't even able to play around while waiting for everything to confirm?

That part would most def suck.
 
mmoulton said:
I just wanted to let everyone know my iPhone was just activated a little over 6 hours after first receiving the 'more time required' message in itunes.

Also my number has successfully ported from verizon despite originally getting the 24 hour waiting period email from AT&T.

So there is hope that the cogs are in motion... albeit, slowly.

-- Mike
Click to expand...

great news...

so you originally attempted activation at around 10 PM EST?
 
i just found out that i gave itunes the wrong account number, but AT&T says the porting office or whatever isnt open until 9 am eastern time, i have to wait until the morning to fix the problem
 
synth3tik said:
I had no issues with activation. It took only 5 minutes and I kept my T-Mobile number. About 45 minutes after that I got a conformation email for AT&T that I was now able to receive incoming calls from my transfered number.
Click to expand...

i'm transferring from t-mobile too, and i got the 24 hour message in an email.

i guess there's hope.
 
Manual Activation

After waiting 4.5 hours, I received an email from ATT saying that my existing account is incompatible with the iPhone and it requires "manual activation" - it's an old ATT "blue" sim card. I called the 877 number and of course I was told that the manual activation office is closed. So I get to start another waiting period in the morning.

[sigh]
 
mmoulton said:
9:49 EST is when AT&T sent me the first message regarding the 24 hour turn-arount time for the port.
Click to expand...

so, if my iPhone will be activated in the same general timeframe that yours was, i am looking at 6:08 AM.

i got my email at 12:08...

it's going to be a long night.
 
I am now over 7 hours of waiting. I received my "your activation requires additional time" message at 8:50PM EST. It is now 3:56AM EST and i still have not received the email.

It seems like this is longer than anyone in this post has mentioned. Anyone in the same boat as me?

I'm bummed out for sure. This is annoying.
I also signed up for a family plan and have a second phone waiting here that it hasnt even prompted me about....I guess I can assume that one is going to take just as long. I just want to get one activated and the other one going before going to bed so that maybe tomorrow morning these will work.

EDIT: My T-Mobile phone that I'm transferring the number from still works...is that bad?
 
Here is an email I sent to sjobs@apple.com. I don't know if anyone will see it but it made me feel better writing it.

Extremely DIs-A-Pointed: Still Waiting on Activation

In the 6 years that I have been a consumer of Apple products, I have never been so disappointed. I have often bragged about Apple's legedary ease of use and how their products just work. That ends today. I have before me 2 wireless phones that cost me more than $900 and I cannot make or receive a call from either one. Why? Because the much ballyhooed self-activation process has failed miserably for me. I own a Razr which was able to accept and make calls until I tried to transfer my existing AT&T phone number to a new iphone. What a mistake. I cannot make a call on the iphone because my account will not activate (which is absolutely asinine because I am already an AT&T customer). I cannot make a call on the Razr because AT&T disconnected the Razr SIM and shows that the iphone is active on my account. I have wasted hours trying to get someone from AT&T or Apple to help, but it was a futile waste of time. AT&T and Apple keep shifting the blame to each other. The customer service representatives, especially from AT&T, are not well trained to support the iphone. They've been pretty useless so far with their wait 4, 6 or 24 hours scripted answers.

In the meantime, I have no phone, no reasonable explanation of what the problem is and no idea when things might be fixed. If this is an issue of an overloaded system, I say shame on you AT&T/Apple because you manufactured this hype and demand and should have anticpated the amount of system traffic this launch would cause. Had I been warned that it could take days to self-activate an existing AT&T account, I would have waited to have it done at an AT&T store. However, I do not think my issue is a bandwith issue because there are thousands who have activated their accounts after I tried activating mine.

I have often defended and promoted Apple products because they normally work with minimal effort from the user. My experience with the iphone makes me feel like I'm in Windows Hell trying to workaround a problem that no one in support can help me with. I expected better of Apple. This incident has seriously damaged your reputation with me. I own 3 apple computers and was going to replace my powerbook with a mac book pro. However, I am so displeased with this situation that I cannot fathom spending $2500 on another piece of Apple equipment.

I purchased an iphone because I hate my Razr and thought that Apple came up with an elegant and compelling solution to many of the problems with existing cell phones. But so far, the iphone is completely useless to me. I am seriously thinking of returning the iphone, cancelling my AT&T service and switching to Metro PCS. It might not be an elegant solution but at least I won't be paying top dollar for less than mediocre service.
 
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