Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I've been hearing similar successes with the 877-800-3701 this morning on the AT&T forums. I'm currently on hold.
 
Did you try to get a new sim card from at&t and start the process over? I was thinking of trying that. I will open a whole new account. Then, call after the fact and cancel the first account.


after i fell asleep last night at like 2am, my girl got on the phone with them and apparently was mad as hell. the guy she spoke with was really cool, had her check my sim card. number was one digit off.

also, at one point, itunes said my activation had expired.

i have another sim card, but im not gonna mess with it until instructed to do so by someone who works for them, so if anything bad happens its their fault for giving the instruction!

:D

im on hold right now for the synchronous people, or ewoks, or something. hope we can get it manually pushed.

who knows at this point.

if i have to, ill gladly restart the activation process, new number or not.

im annoyed, but i have something to take the edge off.

:D
 
Caution on switching SIM cards & restarting Activation

A warning to anyone who would swap out SIM cards.

I've been waiting over a day like everyone else... and read posts about swapping sim cards and decided to give that a try. I took my old sim card from my blackberry pearl, and put that in.

Well, I wish I could say it was successful, but it wasn't. I am now waiting for activation as well - with the all-too-familiar "Requires additional time" screen.

Another thing, this is probably going to affect billing for anybody who tries this. I am going to wait for a few hours to see what happens with activation, but I will be calling AT&T to see what they have on their system and make sure that they clean up my billing situation before the bill actually arrives.

Good luck,
~ Rob
 
well its been 37 hours. when the att store opens, it will have been 40. i will go there with my laptop and i'm not leaving until i can make a call with my iphone with my old number.
 
I was on a family plan with my dad on Verizon. I went to the Apple store, got my iPhone and plugged it in. I opened my own ATT account and tried to port my number over. 24 hours later, still no activation and all the phone calls have said is "just wait longer, there is nothing we can do at this point". I'm really kind of mad about this. My other cell on verizon still works, but I hate the fact that I paid 600 bucks for an emergency call phone.
 
I was on a family plan with my dad on Verizon. I went to the Apple store, got my iPhone and plugged it in. I opened my own ATT account and tried to port my number over. 24 hours later, still no activation and all the phone calls have said is "just wait longer, there is nothing we can do at this point". I'm really kind of mad about this. My other cell on verizon still works, but I hate the fact that I paid 600 bucks for an emergency call phone.


yeah, im in the same boat as you, only i been at it for 38 hours.

its frustrating as hell.

if i was one of the AT&T people who have no phone at all, i'd be even more furious.

i think it is a good sign that my voicemail says that it hasnt been set up yet, instead of "not taking calls," and that a lot of you guys have gotten up and running.

ill be happy as a clam when i DO, its just been tarnished by this process, which i blame both parties for. they just didnt have they ish together at all and that SUCKS for us.

what can ya do, ya know? i wouldnt take the be patient and wait thing seriously anymore, it sure isnt working for me.
 
Keep the faith guys. After 16 hours from starting this crappy process, I just got my activation email and I'm syncing now. I am a new customer (no porting).
 
Ok, good news for everyone that's waiting...I started the process yesterday at 9:33 AM - Activation and a Port from Verizon. Finally at 9:49 this morning (24 Hrs, 16 Mins Later!), I got the everythings good text message! Activation and Port are complete! And, for the record, it's worth the wait - iPhone is awesome!!!
 
All I'm saying is that I BETTER not lose my old number because the last four digits spell out my last name and I can't get that again. I would be furious. I really just want this thing to start working so I can justify spending 600 dollars on a phone.

I've been looking forward to it for a while now and will be EXTREMELY happy with it when it starts working, but I just wish that they could have gone with regular activation instead of doing something they weren't prepared for.
 
Thought you might enjoy my little tale

I've been following this site forever but never registered. After following the last few days and everyones iphone woes, I thought you might enjoy my story.
Got the iphone friday- a nice woman in line way ahead of me decided she didnt want one last minute and gave me her spot- i was the 8th one in, great start!
Got home, did the initial activation stuff around quarter to 7, got the 24 hour wait thing that most people got. That didnt sit well with me obv, so i started calling ATT. The first day and well into the second day all they could tell me was "your account appears to be processing fine, all you have to do is wait. I see nothing wrong with it." Hours and hours go by, more calls, they kept telling me the same thing as I read on here that people in the same boat as me are getting activated finally (porting from Verizon). Finally, at around 6 last night, someone at att tells me.. "oh wait.. it appears that your number isnt portable, you'll have to call verizon and clear that up." I call Verizon. Not only IS my num portable, but they'd already received and approved the ATT port request. Back to ATT, "oh ok, porting now. As soon as you hang up with us, turn off your verizon phone and your iphone will be active in 30 mins." 2 hours go by. I call again. From my verizon phone that was supposed to be deactivated. I talk to them again, they finally get my verizon phone turned off. Nothing happens the rest of the night. I go to ATT this morning and they tell me that its a porting issue. I ask them, then why is my num already in your system? "Oh.. well then yeah man you just gotta wait." I have no phone at all right now. Nothing. I asked the ATT guy at the store how they plan on compensating people like me and he said they're not.
SO, the gist of this long story is- this has been the worst experience dealing with a company IN MY LIFE. I was lured away from verizon by my love of Apple and now I'm miserable.
 
Ok, good news for everyone that's waiting...I started the process yesterday at 9:33 AM - Activation and a Port from Verizon. Finally at 9:49 this morning (24 Hrs, 16 Mins Later!), I got the everythings good text message! Activation and Port are complete! And, for the record, it's worth the wait - iPhone is awesome!!!

Ah nice... I guess I'll wait till tomorrow till I give AT&T a ring...
 
now I'm miserable.

I predict it won't last.

This thing is wonderful in the most zenlike, huggable, humpable sort of way...

Hang in there. I wait 15 hrs which is nothing compared to you but it is worth the wait...
 
It's late, 28 hours late. Before this iphone activated. AT&T sure put one over on us!

This is what I did to finally activate my phone.

We have an AT&T family plan, with 3 phones. My intent was to activate my iphone using my current cell phone number.

I filled in the activation forms in iTunes, and I was told to wait for an email. The email, of course never came. 28 hours and counting.

I spent hours on the phone with AT&T trying to get my phone activated. I wasted a whole day.

It's late on Saturday night. I tried something really odd. I took my wife's sim card out of her phone, a Motorola v551. Then I popped out the sim card from the iphone, and replaced it with my wife's sim card.

Connected to iTunes, and the activation process popped up! So I filled in all the forms, and, and, my iphone activated! With my wife's old sim card in the iphone.

This is so weird. Love to hear from someone else, if the works for you.

And we are trapped for 2 years with AT&T!


Joe Gomolski

Did actually activate all the way through with her sim card, or did you put yours back in??
 
38+ hours and counting

Got up this morning to an email with an order number anyway; called 3701 to check status (#3) and was told the "we're working on activating it" but not that there were any problems.

Still no phone... tried using option #1 (please leave a message), option #2 (we're closed). Checked my account online and sure enough, it has iPhone data plan on it. Of course I also see Media Max blah blah on there too, which makes no sense.

I've got an appt setup at at the Apple store, maybe I'll at least get some sympathy there if nothing else... am very much considering returning the phones and, if they try to hit me with a "restocking fee", file a dispute with the CC company...

rob.
 
877-800-3701 worked!

I was a former blue customer. Just talked to someone who checked my account, putting me on hold several times. He then said he was going to activate it. Once done, he told me to disconnect my phone for an hour, reconnect it, and I should be good to go.

However, a few minutes after getting off the phone I got the activation complete email. I immediately connected the phone and now I'm all set!

Even if you called 877-800-3701 previously like I have several times, give him another shot today. It looks like they know how to deal with these issues better this morning.
 
I Hate At&t

i don't know that I can take this anymore. I am so mad and the att people are disgustingly poor at taking care of this and their customers . I have always been tolerant of customer service people since they get yelled at all the time, but I am at a loss. I have been waiting over 41 hours
 
Call 877-800-3701 wait on hold for a long time and tell them you want them to manually activate the phone. IT WORKS!!!

I am an existing cingular customer and had to go through cingular to have them manually update my plan and tweak my account.

Then in all irony I received the email with my order number but it went to my junk mail folder in Mail! I noticed it about an hour later when I thought to look there.

After following the advice here, I called the 3701 number for the umpteenth time and asked them to manually activate the phone. Read some numbers from the box and the email arrived quickly.

She had me go through iTunes again and everything went without a hitch. She kept telling me I didn't have to hurry and she called the phone and had me call someone to test it. Was a nice experience after all this.

So call that number, it seems that they are really trying now to get people going.
 
Don't see how people are surprised to see that its taking a few hours to open several thousand accounts over the weekend. :eek:
That being said, AT&T seems like they were a bad choice.
 
My iPhone is activated...but no service?

After 24 hours of waiting, an AT&T customer representative was able to activate my phone for me. After she did, she told me I would be able to make outgoing calls but its been 12 hours now and my phone is still coming up with a No Service signal.

Anyone else having this problem? I am porting from Verizon and my Verizon phone still works! :(
 
The worst

This is the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Just unbelievable. Way over 24 hours at this point. I'm exhausted from dealing with AT&T. Even my old cell phone is a now a worthless brick.

I hate AT&T. I'm very, very concerned that Apple has chosen AT&T as it's carrier.:(
 
After 24 hours of waiting, an AT&T customer representative was able to activate my phone for me. After she did, she told me I would be able to make outgoing calls but its been 12 hours now and my phone is still coming up with a No Service signal.

Anyone else having this problem? I am porting from Verizon and my Verizon phone still works! :(

yes...i'm in the exact situation you are. old verizon phone still works even though my guy said he had just activated the phone. It's been 40 hours for me and i have the same screen you do. :(
 
877-800-3701 worked!

I was a former blue customer. Just talked to someone who checked my account, putting me on hold several times. He then said he was going to activate it. Once done, he told me to disconnect my phone for an hour, reconnect it, and I should be good to go.

However, a few minutes after getting off the phone I got the activation complete email. I immediately connected the phone and now I'm all set!

Even if you called 877-800-3701 previously like I have several times, give him another shot today. It looks like they know how to deal with these issues better this morning.

what the hell are you talking about there is an automated voice mail that says at&t is not accepting clls please leave a message?
 
19 hrs and a thread of hope now

New AT&T customer, no number porting, just got the basic $59 a month with no options - simplest setup that AT&T could ask for..

All I've received is the "your activation requires more time" message, no emails with the order number or anything.

Gave the 3701 number a try and waited 30 mins on hold. The girl said my account had an invalid option and pretty much everyone was getting that and it was holding up the activation. She fixed it and resubmitted with a "red ticket" to expedite it. She also gave me my order number.

This seems to be the only way to get anything going on the activations.

They are still saying they have been told to tell customers there is a minimum of 24 hours to wait for activation.
 
for the record, i did expect some delays, but nothing like 41 hours.

im sure that once they get it running, the service will be fine and everyone will be happy. I will be...6 months of waiting (plus years of speculation) is a lot more than a few more hours.

Im still on with the 3701 people and we're not getting anywhere. im LOL'n at the fact im using Verizon's free weekend minutes to talk to AT&T.

:D

the madder people get at the CSRs, the easier it will be for me!

:D
 
i just woke up and once again to NO EMAIL!! :mad:

i'm calling this 3701 number again to see if they can manually activate my phone... my old sim is still working though?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.