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iPhone Activation Issues

PLEASE>

Can someone give me an email address of ATT re activation.

I am in euriope on holiday and have just been cut off after being on hold for 2hrs 30 mins.

THis is a complete shambles. I have been trying to activate since friday evening and have spoken to ATT or held for them for more than 7 hours.
 
Unfortunately my situation is a little odd ...

After talking to a billion people at ATT , there seems to be some other random persons name on my account .. so they are looking in to that.

Im at the point now where the SIM card idea seems the most logical.


I just want to be able to use this thing
 
This is the number to call!

I waited in the queue since friday night, but finally got it working, this is how I did it. I called this number:

Apple activation support
877 419 4500

They picked up literally on the second ring. No voice tree, a REAL PERSON. She looked at my account, added 1 piece of info and took my callback number. She then waited on hold with the poeple at 877-800-3701 and called me back when she was off hold and they activated my phone in 5 minutes!

Good luck everyone!
 
it seems to me that a lot of people today are getting their iPhone's activated... BUT aren't getting a singal.. me being one of those people. I've been using the phone via wifi and its quite impressive.. but i'd like to get EDGE and VOICE up and running so i can finally put this nightmare to rest... anybody else experiencing the same problem?
 
Finally

After 42 hours, I am up and running - with both iPhones.
After speaking with about a dozen different AT&T agents over the various numbers, each problem was slowly taken care of. First it was porting from Verizon problems, then it was having both phones trying to be activated with the same phone number (from verizon fam. plan to AT&T fam plan).
Some agents are really helpful, some need more training. The worst experience was going to the AT&T store in person - they flat out admitted to knowing nothing and gave me the same phone numbers I already had in my arsenal.
Anyways, all I can say is that there IS hope! I had a tangled mess and they eventually sorted it out... in less than 2 days. If you have and activation ID that was emailed to you, that seemed to help move things along.

And if I ever hear another piano (after being on hold for over 5 hours over the weekend), I am jumping off my roof.

Good luck to everyone - there is hope!
I'm opening up my champagne now.
 
Do yourselves a favor: call 877-800-3701. Get in the queue, and wait out the 45 mins to an hour. Before the rep says anything explain that you are an existing customer that has been through a buggy activation and that your iPhone is in limbo. Explain that you want to be on the line until the phone is activated.

That's what I did, and my phone was activated within 20 minutes. It seems sometimes some weird info can hang up the automated process.
 
OziMac said:
I'd successfully been able to get activation to the processing stage on my old SIM, but had been waiting for 20 hours for it to come through.

So I figured I'd try your approach - I went through activation on the old number with the SIM that came with the iPhone.

Unfortunately, it's brought me right back to square one because iTunes still says that the activation needs more time - and now I have the added problem of having my old SIM deactivated and I've signed up for the same changes twice, and for all I know I'm now at the back of the activation queue all over again. All I can hope is that they don't bung on the data plan additions twice on my bill or charge me twice for activation. What a joke.

So don't try this if you can avoid it.
Click to expand...



NONONO.. dont try and activate your old sim card.. that was ONE of MANY things that was holding up my account.. Try and go to the ATT store and get a new sim card and then do the activation process via itunes again and see what happens...
 
This number has been most responsive so far......

nate1003 said:
I waited in the queue since friday night, but finally got it working, this is how I did it. I called this number:

Apple activation support
877 419 4500

They picked up literally on the second ring. No voice tree, a REAL PERSON. She looked at my account, added 1 piece of info and took my callback number. She then waited on hold with the poeple at 877-800-3701 and called me back when she was off hold and they activated my phone in 5 minutes!

Good luck everyone!
Click to expand...


I followed the advice on this post.......picked up on the second ring too. Customer service rep has been very helpful so far.....still not active, but starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel..... Will repost if this works.

UPDATE: While this has been the most helpful number to call yet, the customer service rep said that due to some obscure reference in my ATT account to some UNLIMITED DATA package that I had on my account at some point, she couldn't proceed any further. She sent it to "TECH SUPPORT" who will resolve it before JULY 5TH!!!! I asked to be transfered directly to them and she said that that department was closed today. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? PROBABLY THE LARGEST LAUNCH IN ATT/APPLE HISTORY AND THE TECH DEPARTMENT ISN'T WORKING TWO DAYS INTO THE LAUNCH??????????

Anyways, thanks for letting me vent....... I will keep you guys posted.
 
wstohner said:
I canceled my activation this morning, and restarted around 9:30am. What did you do to speed up the second activation? Did you call? I chose to not port or go with any SMS package the second time around. I plan to port later in the week, and add SMS when all is said and done.
Click to expand...

Yup, once I got my Order number, I just called and kept pestering them until I got some service.

But now, I'm finding out that my SIM card is not active...
Guess back to the phone again..
 
Finally activated!!!

After 30+ hours, I was finally activated in the wee hours of the morning. Got a link sent to my email, which starts the whole process. After sitting on the message boards with all of you for two days straight, and having the support I did, I just wanted to let you all know. I know how hard this is, but I will reiterate that this is soooooo worth waiting for. Don't return it, or throw it out the window, or throw it at Steve. I wanted to do all of that (and then some) but I stuck it out, and ignored my monolithic iBrick. Then it finally turned into a bonafide iPhone and I couldn't be more thrilled with it than I am right now. As a matter of fact, I am posting this from my new toy. Just hang in there! Your iBrick WILL work eventually, and you will be so glad. I still maintain that I should not have to pay an activation fee, though. By the way, i did not change my plan, or redo anything. I just simply waited. If your phone has the emergency slider, and there is nothing out of the ordinary in your plan according to the at&t reps, then you should be on track. I did leave my iPhone connected to my computer with iTunes running, but I have no idea if this helped or not. It just seemed to work after I did for a few hours, and bam! There was my email.

I completely agree that this whole wait was bull, and I feel terrible and slighted about it.
 
39 hours and finally finished.

My main problem was features on my account that conflict with the iPhone plan. Specifically, that was the NOIN, TYPE 1 feature that supposedly means that the prefix contains both mobile and landline numbers.

Even once my plan was fixed, I still had to call ATT and get them to help me activate it. After an hour on the phone (mostly on hold), I got the email and it worked immediately.

I'm very very happy with it, though the process was tough. They gave me a service credit of an entire month of the voice charge (though I'll still have to pay the $20 data plan).
 
jtkiley said:
39 hours and finally finished.


I'm very very happy with it, though the process was tough. They gave me a service credit of an entire month of the voice charge (though I'll still have to pay the $20 data plan).
Click to expand...

lucky at least you got something
 
Assuming your account is in order (and the only hold up is activation)

Go to ATT
Tell them a rep on phone said get a new SIM
Activate with new SIM..it went through IMMEDIATELY on my phone.

Enjoy!
 
Requirement to keep iPhone connected to computer after activation

I bought my iPhone Friday evening and did the activation through iTunes. I ported my number from Verizon. Got an email that my old phone would be disconnected in 24 hours. Then got an email about 4 hours later that my phone number had been transferred to the iPhone and could make outgoing calls. Then two hours later, an email that activation was complete. However, incoming calls are still going to my Verizon phone. I just called Verizon, who said the ball was in AT&T's court. I called AT&T (877/800-3701). The rep told me that just today the reps had received new information that activation requires you to keep the iPhone turned on and connected for six hours after the iTunes portion of the activation process is complete. He advised me to do that now, then turn it off for a half hour, and then back on -- without connecting it to the computer -- for 5 minutes. None of this makes sense, but I'm going to give it a try. Everything else on the iPhone works -- it just doesn't receive calls.

This seems to be new info so I thought I'd pass it on.
 
Finally

hi all. I'm posting this from my iPhone. Took almost 40 hours. In the end I just cancelled my activation and started fresh and it took 3 minutes. That's after waiting for almost 2 days. I now think there was some weird address mismatch that they somehow failed to figure out or resolve even after i called several times. That is to say this system seems very sensitive, so maybe restarting the process will help some people.
 
Bought my 8GB iPhone at 12 noon EST, initiated activation ~2pm. Received email at 2:10 pm:
AT&T is now processing your activation. You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete.
Click to expand...
Interesting thing is I opted for a new number as I didn't want to port my number right now (try later maybe because of stories I've read here). Still no email activation. I would've thought activation for new customers would be quick.
 
AT&T SIM is ready, but iTunes is not

My AT&T iPhone SIM is activated, but I still get the iTunes message that "Your activation requires additional time to complete."

So I called Apple. The Apple CSR said "if you're porting a number, our experience is that it takes up to 3 days to complete." Huh? The product has been released only 2 days, so how can experience show it takes 3 days?

Anyway, I explained that the iPhones SIM is now active. I put it in another phone and it places and receives calls just fine. Looks like AT&T's work is done, and the ball is in Apple's court.

So I asked for the Apple CSR's supervisor and this is what he said: "Once the SIM is active, Apple can process only 200 new iPhones per minute, and there are 3 million requests in the queue." :mad: That would mean more than 10 days. If it's true, it's a colossal mistake. If it's not true, Apple's CSRs shouldn't be saying this. Apple, this is a huge screwup. You should have been ready.

UPDATE: 90 minutes later, I received the activation email. Synching now. Hmm. Maybe Apple can process 200 new iPhones per second, not per minute? That would have created a 4-hour delay.
 
Success!!

Do not wait for att or apple to send the email!! They won't!!! If you started your process on Friday, and have the screen claiming additional time required...immediately go to the att store and get a new sim, and act as if you were starting from scratch!! this will re-set the itunes problem...after waiting 40+ hours, I figured this would solve this from past posts on this site (thanks by the way)...I activated my phone with my powerbook in the store in less than 4 minutes with the new sim.
 
The miracle number

The miracle number worked for me. Waited about 20 mins and then the call took under 5 minutes and the phone was activated. 1-877-800-3701. The CSR's at this number have a better understanding of what is going on and this also appears to be a dedicated iphone activation line as oppposed to the general help number. My story was that I had the wrong plan, which of course was supposed to be switched yesterday. This phone line is the line. Good luck!
 
Okay, after three days, I registered because I got my phone working, and I wanted to try to help you guys as much as you all have helped me. Having all your various stories really helped me sort out what's going on here and now I've got a working phone.

Here's what's going on for people who have active sim cards, but iphones that still need itunes activation.

Your sim card is active, but itunes doesn't care, because it's not supposed to lag like things did on Friday, and I personally don't think they tested that situation before release. So what's going on is as far as AT&T is concerned, you're open and ready to go, but itunes itself has no way of handling this. What you need to do, is go to an AT&T/Cingular store, and have your entire account ported to a new sim card WITHOUT THE iPHONE DATA PLAN. DO NOT LET THEM ADD THE DATA PLAN WHEN THEY PORT YOUR ACCOUNT TO A NEW SIM. YOU WILL ADD THIS IN ITUNES.

Okay, now that I'm done yelling, we can continue. Once you have a new sim card in your phone, go through the itunes set up process just as you did on Friday night (only I didn't take the expanded text package, as I'd heard people say it caused problems. I will just add it this week instead). Select your data plan, accept the terms, and at the end it will activate your phone (there was no email, it just activates right there, in about thirty seconds, THEN it emails you.)

After that, toss your old sim card in the garbage, configure your email, and rock the **** out.

I know this wont help everyone, but my wife and I were both existing AT&T wireless customers (I came from cingular, she came from AT&T Blue), and this worked for us. Hope it helps.
 
did everyones cellular service turn on right away after receiving the email from itunes for activation??? i'm still 2 hrs after activation happily still playing with the toy but no service (can't call or be called)

anyone else experience this?
 
Apple activation support
877 419 4500

They picked up literally on the second ring. No voice tree, a REAL PERSON. She looked at my account, added 1 piece of info and took my callback number. She then waited on hold with the poeple at 877-800-3701 and called me back when she was off hold and they activated my phone in 5 minutes!

Good luck everyone!

I followed the advice on this post.......picked up on the second ring too. Customer service rep has been very helpful so far.....still not active, but starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel..... Will repost if this works.

UPDATE: While this has been the most helpful number to call yet, the customer service rep said that due to some obscure reference in my ATT account to some UNLIMITED DATA package that I had on my account at some point, she couldn't proceed any further. She sent it to "TECH SUPPORT" who will resolve it before JULY 5TH!!!! :confused: I asked to be transfered directly to them and she said that that department was closed today. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? PROBABLY THE LARGEST LAUNCH IN ATT/APPLE HISTORY AND THE TECH DEPARTMENT ISN'T WORKING TWO DAYS INTO THE LAUNCH??????????:mad:

Anyways, thanks for letting me vent....... I will keep you guys posted.
 
ciscokidd said:
did everyones cellular service turn on right away after receiving the email from itunes for activation??? i'm still 2 hrs after activation happily still playing with the toy but no service (can't call or be called)

anyone else experience this?
Click to expand...


experiencing the same thing.. 4 hours later.
 
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