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iPhone Activation Issues
- Thread starter iamhammill
- Start date
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I called, got my phone activated AND Verizon number ported in less than an hour. Please see my thread relating to possible problems when porting and activating...mine was a brick for 14 hours...maybe it can help you too.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/322518/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/322518/
They should at least update the status message in iTunes...
I know it's possible, because I've been launching/re-launching iTunes and I've noticed that the ATT phone number has been removed...
I know it's possible, because I've been launching/re-launching iTunes and I've noticed that the ATT phone number has been removed...
same issues
Stood in line 4 hours, in the rain and lightening. Once in the store the employee had no idea what they were doing. Once at the desk did my credit check...paid for the 8 gig and deposit..She gave me a Ban number 1 hour after entering the store. Take it home, get activate, get an email that says I need to go pay a deposit...call the number 3 times and get 3 different answers.
1) Activation Takes 24 hours
2) Go back to the store
3) Rep states: " Several hundreded people were given the wrong BAN or incorrect ban numbers and you have to go back to the store"
Ive had my phone for 12 hours and can still do NOTHING with it other than play with the emergency number.
I am bitter.
Stood in line 4 hours, in the rain and lightening. Once in the store the employee had no idea what they were doing. Once at the desk did my credit check...paid for the 8 gig and deposit..She gave me a Ban number 1 hour after entering the store. Take it home, get activate, get an email that says I need to go pay a deposit...call the number 3 times and get 3 different answers.
1) Activation Takes 24 hours
2) Go back to the store
3) Rep states: " Several hundreded people were given the wrong BAN or incorrect ban numbers and you have to go back to the store"
Ive had my phone for 12 hours and can still do NOTHING with it other than play with the emergency number.
I am bitter.
I wonder what will happen if I put in my old sim card and restart the process again?
Anybody tried this yet?
Anybody tried this yet?
12hrs and still nothing.
Still waiting...The biggest frustration is that I am an existing AT&T customer. I have been told to wait 24hrs and if that doesn't work then I can try to wait on hold again with the least helpful AT&T. The problem is I have been given six different explanations as to why it is taking so long. The first was a problem with my existing voice plan. Listen up, if you have an older voice plan that is not being currently offered then the activation will halt (my plan was from 2003). If this is the case with you then I suggest before attaching the iphone and trying to activate, call AT&T and change the plan to a current one. During the activation they will offer you a chance to pay $20 to add the Data plan. The next problem was the woman who setup my plan did port me over to the new "blue system"..I guess the excitement of me being her first iphone customer was too much, so she messed up. I cant help but think that if Apple wasn't so secretive with the release of the phone, then AT&T employees would have had a better understanding of how this should work. I mean to remedy the activation hiccup I was also told to delete my cookies, eject the disc and then unplug the phone. It was obvious that the AT&T call center was very ignorant about the setup process. Between getting bounced around for 3 and a half hours on the phone, and dealing with 2 different supervisors I have nothing to show except for a non functioning $650 device..Oh how I waited for this moment. I'm going to call the apple iphone people today since they were the only people I couldn't reach last night.Hopefully I will have a working phone by this afternoon. If not
Still waiting...The biggest frustration is that I am an existing AT&T customer. I have been told to wait 24hrs and if that doesn't work then I can try to wait on hold again with the least helpful AT&T. The problem is I have been given six different explanations as to why it is taking so long. The first was a problem with my existing voice plan. Listen up, if you have an older voice plan that is not being currently offered then the activation will halt (my plan was from 2003). If this is the case with you then I suggest before attaching the iphone and trying to activate, call AT&T and change the plan to a current one. During the activation they will offer you a chance to pay $20 to add the Data plan. The next problem was the woman who setup my plan did port me over to the new "blue system"..I guess the excitement of me being her first iphone customer was too much, so she messed up. I cant help but think that if Apple wasn't so secretive with the release of the phone, then AT&T employees would have had a better understanding of how this should work. I mean to remedy the activation hiccup I was also told to delete my cookies, eject the disc and then unplug the phone. It was obvious that the AT&T call center was very ignorant about the setup process. Between getting bounced around for 3 and a half hours on the phone, and dealing with 2 different supervisors I have nothing to show except for a non functioning $650 device..Oh how I waited for this moment. I'm going to call the apple iphone people today since they were the only people I couldn't reach last night.Hopefully I will have a working phone by this afternoon. If not
IM COMMING OVER FROM SPRINT.....GOT THE MESSAGE BEEN WAITING 10.5 HOURS...IM FRIKING PISSED I DONT STOP CALLING AND THEY ALL TELL ME THE SAME CRAP....NO ONE KNOWS......
I waited 11 hours yeaterday (#1 in line), than same thing (coming from Sprint and l-o-n-g Porting time) - it took till 5am today but now it is live! Yeah!
Activation seems to have become the bottleneck for the iPhone rollout...and that is largely out of Apple's control. I can see both sides, and there are several factors that effect things.
If I am an existing AT&T customer, getting a new number, and my current plan has no "special" riders then activation seems to go relatively well considering the number of people trying to activate their phones.
If I an NOT an existing AT&T customer, then a credit check is made (a fairly standard practice), and that throws a delay in. Now AT&T probably uses one of the standard credit reporting agencies for the check, and the problem may be at that end. Remember this crunch is a short lived thing, so Equifax, et al is not going to have added capacity at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars (minimum of you include purchase, installation, setup, testing, etc) for a few days of max capacity.
If you have any AT&T plan that requires a modification, that muddies the water more since that probably requires someone to enter the information by hand.
If you are transferring an existing number, or (heaven forbid) transferring from a different carrier, the delays may well be beyond the control of Apple or AT&T. If one were a conspiracy theorist, one would question if Verizon, etc were really putting in their "all" to help transfer accounts and phone numbers over to a competitor? Some discontent with AT&T certainly would not hurt "their" business...uuhhhmmmmm.
Shall I throw in one more monkey wrench...the long 4th of July Holiday is THIS weekend. Common IT practice is to schedule upgrades, major maintenance, etc for a LONG holiday weekend (we always use XMAS and New Years). Anyone want to take bets that one or more of the applicable interconnect parties in this operation did NOT schedule something for the weekend that is having a detrimental effect on performance? The LEFT hand rarely knows what the RIGHT hand is doing in big IT establishments.
Oh, and let's not forget the current trend of outsourcing a lot of support/maintenance work to foreign countries like India or Pakistan. The people who are handling the updates to your customer records may not even be in this country, or on this time zone (I wonder if that is one reasons they scheduled the rollout for the odd time of 6PM????). This can also throw a snag into the system. The volume of traffic involved in this rollout may be saturating the foreign networks ( and support workers) as well, which are often less '"robust" than those locally in the US. Again, no one is going to have increased capacity ( other than a few temp hires) for a short lived saturation.
I like the TV interview they did with the young video games tester...he wasn't going to get one until V2...AFTER they had worked all the bugs out! Young .....but with several lifetimes of "real world experience" ........
If I am an existing AT&T customer, getting a new number, and my current plan has no "special" riders then activation seems to go relatively well considering the number of people trying to activate their phones.
If I an NOT an existing AT&T customer, then a credit check is made (a fairly standard practice), and that throws a delay in. Now AT&T probably uses one of the standard credit reporting agencies for the check, and the problem may be at that end. Remember this crunch is a short lived thing, so Equifax, et al is not going to have added capacity at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars (minimum of you include purchase, installation, setup, testing, etc) for a few days of max capacity.
If you have any AT&T plan that requires a modification, that muddies the water more since that probably requires someone to enter the information by hand.
If you are transferring an existing number, or (heaven forbid) transferring from a different carrier, the delays may well be beyond the control of Apple or AT&T. If one were a conspiracy theorist, one would question if Verizon, etc were really putting in their "all" to help transfer accounts and phone numbers over to a competitor? Some discontent with AT&T certainly would not hurt "their" business...uuhhhmmmmm.
Shall I throw in one more monkey wrench...the long 4th of July Holiday is THIS weekend. Common IT practice is to schedule upgrades, major maintenance, etc for a LONG holiday weekend (we always use XMAS and New Years). Anyone want to take bets that one or more of the applicable interconnect parties in this operation did NOT schedule something for the weekend that is having a detrimental effect on performance? The LEFT hand rarely knows what the RIGHT hand is doing in big IT establishments.
Oh, and let's not forget the current trend of outsourcing a lot of support/maintenance work to foreign countries like India or Pakistan. The people who are handling the updates to your customer records may not even be in this country, or on this time zone (I wonder if that is one reasons they scheduled the rollout for the odd time of 6PM????). This can also throw a snag into the system. The volume of traffic involved in this rollout may be saturating the foreign networks ( and support workers) as well, which are often less '"robust" than those locally in the US. Again, no one is going to have increased capacity ( other than a few temp hires) for a short lived saturation.
I like the TV interview they did with the young video games tester...he wasn't going to get one until V2...AFTER they had worked all the bugs out! Young .....but with several lifetimes of "real world experience" ........
Next step in the nightmare...
7 hours after I tried to activate, I get my messsage:
Processing Activation
Your current AT&T rate plan is not compatible with the iPhone.
Please contact AT&T at 877-419-4500 to select a new rate plan and complete your activation.
Refer to your Activation ID when calling.
xxxxxx
WTF??? I am a NEW customer and picked the rate plan from iTunes??
Bad ATT, very Bad. After WWDC, I once again was made aware of how sensitive Apple is toward customer perception. Steve Jobs is probably having a stroke over this...
7 hours after I tried to activate, I get my messsage:
Processing Activation
Your current AT&T rate plan is not compatible with the iPhone.
Please contact AT&T at 877-419-4500 to select a new rate plan and complete your activation.
Refer to your Activation ID when calling.
xxxxxx
WTF??? I am a NEW customer and picked the rate plan from iTunes??
Bad ATT, very Bad. After WWDC, I once again was made aware of how sensitive Apple is toward customer perception. Steve Jobs is probably having a stroke over this...
Thank you, I will give this a try.
Have you logged into your account to see that it's alright and you don't have an extra one added?
Can't Even Get Activation Screen
When I plug my iPhone in, it won't even give me the activation screen. All it does is goes right to the standard "Sync" screen in iTunes. I can push music and videos and use all the functions of my iPhone but can't get it activated. I was on the phone with support 4 hours last night until 3AM EST. Finally, after getting to the highest level of support, they said I have to go to the ATT store today and force activate.
So, I have a fully working "ipod" but no phone services
I just want to get the screen to activate and stop having support keep asking for my social security #. I keep saying I didn't even get a chance to activate and all they want is my stupid # to look me up. They beefed up their support for last night, but with idiots.
When I plug my iPhone in, it won't even give me the activation screen. All it does is goes right to the standard "Sync" screen in iTunes. I can push music and videos and use all the functions of my iPhone but can't get it activated. I was on the phone with support 4 hours last night until 3AM EST. Finally, after getting to the highest level of support, they said I have to go to the ATT store today and force activate.
So, I have a fully working "ipod" but no phone services
I just want to get the screen to activate and stop having support keep asking for my social security #. I keep saying I didn't even get a chance to activate and all they want is my stupid # to look me up. They beefed up their support for last night, but with idiots.
***MODERATOR NEEDS TO PUT THIS COMMENT ON FRONT PAGE***
If you take the sim out of your iPhone and put it in your old phone that is deactivated, you can use your old phone until you get the activation. At that time, you should switch the sims back and plug your iPhone into iTunes to get it activated.
If you take the sim out of your iPhone and put it in your old phone that is deactivated, you can use your old phone until you get the activation. At that time, you should switch the sims back and plug your iPhone into iTunes to get it activated.
What did you expect them to do, hire highly qualified personnel for temp labor? I'm just happy that the people I spoke with appeared to be familiar with the english language.
Woke up like Christmas and I got emails saying mine was activated and the number was transferred!
I hope so, I hope he knows about this... I want him to give ATT hell about this - makes iPhone launch look bad.
Going on 7 hours for me now - and I'm an existing ATT customer.
I could understand a 2-3 hour delay, but man... anything more is completely unacceptable!!
Yes, I can confirm this works (I was on ATT before) at least now I have a damn phone to use.
This is hilarious so apparently the new SIM does indeed work BUT IN MY OLD PHONE ONLY.
so I guess there is an issue activaing the actual Iphone not the sim card!!! BLAH
so I guess there is an issue activaing the actual Iphone not the sim card!!! BLAH