iPhone activations hosed until morning?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 30th 2007 3:57AM
posted Jun 30th 2007 3:57AM
We've been hearing scattered reports some that newly-christened iPhone owners are having a heck of a time finalizing the activation process in iTunes. That sucks for a couple reasons: first, these puppies are darned near useless without being activated, and second, it seems the procedure is hanging after the point at which existing customers' current SIMs are deactivated. So yeah, long story short, there's a few people out there left phoneless while AT&T gets its act together, which it's been said may not be until morning. Burnin' the midnight oil over there, O Masters of Activation?
CRAP! Back to making calls on my Zune again!
Apple Genuine Advantage™?
(All times PST) Bought my iPhone at 8:30. Got it home and going at 9pm. Went out, got home at about 1am. couldn't sync, or match up with anything. iTunes down. It's now 1:52am, and it's down still
Took me 7 hours before the email arrived!
They are getting a call on monday!
Dude, Steve Jobs must be pretty steamed about this issue. He and along with Apple as a whole, really wanted the iPhone user experience to be as seem-less as advertised.
I mean it matches most of its hype, but the activation is a kink in its armor and I'm sure Stevo in Cupertino ain't pleased.
@Jeve Sobs
Wow, now that is some cognitive dissonance if Iv ever seen it. Even though activation is hozed within hours of release you still think the iPhone experience is seamless?
Um, exactly why is Steve steamed that they sold so many phones that a large wireless carrier can't keep up?
I wonder if he can berate the ppl at AT&T like he does at Apple and get something DONE about this?
still waiting -- got mine at 6 pm pacific. my old phone still works, though, for now. but damnit, it's like i got a teddy ruxpin and had to wait a day for the battery delivery.
it's annoying that everything is crippled until activation is complete.
[12+ hours for me]
Teddy Ruxpin.... ROFL! Here's mine:
... like my magical unicorn is just a horse with a horn glued on its head.
Is it possible to use iPhone's non-phone functions without activating it?
For example: If I wanted a WiFi internet browsing - digital photo taking - iPod Video, could I buy an iPhone and use it as such out of the box?
The word on the street is... no.
Is activation required only for WiFi or is it impossible to use it as a mere iPod without AT&T's support?
You can't use the iPhone for anything without activation.
The only thing that works is 911.
AT&T is offering PRE-PAID service. They're not advertising it. It's more expensive monthly, but doesn't include the 2yr contract, or credit check. Ask in the store.
Just one thought on everything iPhone.: "Apple, get ready for hackers!"
They're just making everyone wait for my birthday (the 30th).
After waiting for 20 minutes, I took the iPhone out of its cradle, waited a minute, plugged it back in. iTunes popped up again with the "Please wait three minutes for activation" message and three minutes later, activation had been accomplished. Passed this on to two friends, they had a similar experience -- though for friend #2 it took three tries.
BRILLIANT this worked for thanks
HACK iPhone!!!
People, let's make it for all humanity - iPhone must be free as ipod!!!
No contracts! No AT&T!
Insert your old sim-card and you're free.
All the other world is waiting for it!
Right around 6:00PM EST my Nokia N75 could no longer get a signal. I tried using my brothers phone, which wasn't a 3G phone, to call AT&T. Waited 20 minutes on hold, and decided to try the online chat. Got home and 3 minutes after chatting with a AT&T rep, my phone came back. The rep tried to say it wasn't because of the IPHONE, but it seems pretty coincidental that my phone crapped out at 6:00pm.
Personally, I had no problems with my activation. And I'm on the West Coast, so the servers were in full swing. I'm reading people who are having troubles are the ones who need their number transferred over. And when they call AT&T they tell them that its their carrier holding things up. I've read one case where that was confirmed with what was eventually a conference call between the customer, AT&T and the customer's current carrier.
Makes one ponder, if this is the case... sabotage?
I'm porting from tmobile and I finished the activation process in itunes yesterday at 9 and I still need to get an email for confirmation.
I just called now and they told me to wait 24 hours.
24 HOURS??????????????????????????
It can take up to 3 days to transfer a number. And think about it... this is crazyness... the other phone companies deal with porting a few hundred times a day... now it's tens of thousands... why would they add people to their porting operation to make it EASIER to leave? Yeah, you'll wait...
As the other poster mentioned... Apple has to be furious. They made this whole experience just insanely painless, hell.... they had people by the door to clap for you as you left the store here...
BIG shock that at&t dropped the ball. As far as I can tell, most cell phone companies are ran and operated by drooling troglodytes.
A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side.Suddenly he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river.
The fox said, 'No, if I do that you'll sting me and I'll drown.' The scorpion assured him, 'If I did that we'd both drown.' So the fox thought about it, finally agreed. So the scorpion climbed up on his back and the fox began to swim. But halfway across the river the scorpion stung him.
As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion, said 'Why did you do that? Now you'll drown too.' 'I couldn't help it,' said the scorpion, 'it's my nature.'
Apple = Fox
AT&T = Scorpion
lol...I've heard a lot of those "fox crossing the river" stories..but this one is new
West coast.
Tried to activate at 10:30pm PST with my current AT&T number and account.
1:45am PST still waiting for activation.
AT&T = Scorpion
I tried activating my new iPhone with an existing AT&T/Cingular account, only to be informed that AT&T will be emailing me when activation is complete. It's now 2AM PST and still no email from AT&T. Now my old phone doesn't work and my new iPhone doesn't do anything except look pretty in its cradle.
Come on Apple, why are you crippling iPhones out the gate like this. Allow users the ability to at least use the iPod and other non-phone features of the iPhone. Get rid of iTunes activation!
Can you imagine if the first iPods required activation before working. Does anyone think iPods would be as popular today? At least Windows XP allows you 30 days of use before it became locked until activation. If Apple is going down this route of activation for hardware, somebody should tell Steve he's finally lost it.
Think about it as flying into Chicago O'Hare. (Most of you won't be able to afford to for a while, he he he). Anyway, you fly in on the Red Eye on Tuesday, you fly straight in. TRY TO FLY IN THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING. You're going to circle the airport, over and over and over. Sure, you could WAIT A DAY... be sensible, fly in on Thanksgiving morning when there's no wait... but what's the fun in THAT? You wanna be FIRST at the table!! So you wait in the long lines, you sit on the crowded plane, and just when it seems that the trip is almost over... "This is the Captain... we're 73rd in the holding queque... we should be landing in about 45 minutes."
Yes, I realize that many of you have had to wait for more than 45 minutes. But c'mon. The people at AT&T don't have a magic wand, where they can wave it and say "Presto! I-Phone-o!" It's a PHYSICAL PROCESS involving switches and stuff... and y'all are waiting for that to go through. It's unfortunate. Could AT&T have done this differently? Sure, they could have invested a ton of money into making it easier for millions of people to activate their phones all at the same time - for the duration of one weekend.
I understand you're frustrated but, if you didn't think there might be a little "unseamlessness" in this process if you were first in line, go to your I-Phone and look up "naive" on Google.com. We'll wait...
UPDATE: So it looks like my phone was activated over night. I awoke to a working iPhone. Yeah! Now for the task of transferring all my contacts from my old phone over to the new iPhone. It would have been nicer if I could have just swapped in my old Cingular/AT&T SIM Card; but whatever...I suppose Steve & AT&T had reasons why they wanted all new iPhone owners to have a new SIM Card.
this should never had happened!!! i bought my iphone at 6pm est and its 5am now and still cant get this crap started.. im quiet upset about this. Does it look like work at ATT??? why couldnt Apple have the ATT handle this mess!!! i was on the phone late last night for about almost 5 hrs talking to ATT and Apple customer services!!
@ streetfighter,
This is AT&Ts mess. It's their servers, their systems that active the bloody phone.
I had to port my number over and I have been waiting for over 5 hours now.. Called and ATT said could be up to 24 hours due to high volume.
I itching to just say the hell with and make an emergency call, so I can at least see something.. ;)
Bought my phone at 8pm, started activation at 8:30, up and running by 9:30.
There are a lot of people going at this at once, cut them a little slack.
How *did* people survive before cell phones?! :)
people don't survive. they die. so don't try anything new. ever.
is it me or is anyone else having this problem where it states that "Could not complete the itunes store request. Store maybe busy. Check your internet connection or try again later".??? because i cant get passed it... i tried activating both on my mac and my pc....wtf!!!
I am getting the: "could not complete the itunes store request. The store may be busy" as well. I have been trying to activate this one for my mom since last night. I was able to activate mine no sweat!
how did you get passed it the first time?
I never saw it the first time. It only appeared today when I tried to activate my mothers phone. I am going to try it on a different mac. Ill let you know apparently it is not widespread so it does not seem to be a true busy signal. Did you call anyone and if so what number?
So it turns out if you start the activation process at all on any computer (even getting passed one screen) and move to another, then you will get the "could not complete the itunes store request ..." error until you go back to the original computer you started on. Hope this helps. I am now passed the error and att tells me it will be 24-48 hrs to get my phone activated :(
Here's my question. Let's say I hold on to my old phone. Would it be possible for me to take my sim out of my iPhone and put it in my old phone for if I wanted to go and do something active and didn't want to chance my iPhone getting messed up?
i was FINALLY able to ACTIVATE my phone. my holdup may have been different than someone else's, but hopefully this helps.
so i got the dreaded 24 hour notice. to cut to the chase, i was trying to port a number from tmobile to att. everything has to match for the process to occur smoothly. specifically in my case, i made the mistake of filling out the section of "where will this phone be used most".. well, my number is a chicago number, and i'm still based in chicago, but i'm working in new york now. att cannot port a number to a different market like that
so after HOURS on the phone last night, i finally got a supervisor in the itunes activation department to CANCEL my account request. 4 minutes later, i plugged in the phone, went through the process again, and then had a working iphone in another 4 minutes.
i wish those guys would figure it out and just give people a SECOND CHANCE to reapply if it's not going well the first time. they would save a lot of time by just cancelling the accounts and giving a customers a second try instead of doing tech support for hours that doesn't go anywhere.
i did have to be firm, but not rude to get past the standard response from the supervisor. so in my case, the secret was to get them completely cancel my account activation request. hope this helps!
bhavesh
can you please tell us which # you called, because they are giving out 3 different #s. Thanks, I wanted to cancel earlier, but they didn't let me, kept bouncing me around.
Sorry i dont know the number. I was transferred in. But it was the iTunes activation department. I think that is the number from the email
I'm one of these owners of an expensive bricks.... So while waiting for AT&T to get their act in gear, I had experimented with some things...
Try "emergency dialing" of:
#21*
#30* (doesn't give me an error, but doesn't give me any info)
#31*
#33*
#35*
Hey, at least we get to play with a scroller, no?
(My heart goes out to the first person that figures out the code to just unlock wifi .... Where are you Stanford nerds with a 'scope when I need one?!)
Got phone, no activation. Waiting 24 hours by my computer for the promised email. Got up the guts to "Scroll for Emergency" (was initially afraid that would call 911 immediately as they told me at the Apple store- not true) and have since been entertaining myself playing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on the keyboard. Seems like 3, 5, 7, 5, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 9 is a nice combination. If anyone knows of anything better, please post.
ode to joy: 33588532112332233588532112321122312353123532129335885321123211
twinkle twinkle: 11 99 ## 9 88 55 22 1 99 88 55 2 99 88 55 2 11 99 ## 9 88 55 22 1
are you sure that only the ativation sucks?
I beg to differ. Just activated at 12:45a Pacific time.
total BS....still waiting.
It took me approximately 1.5 minutes to activate my iphone once it was plugged in.
I had some initial issues when I tried to activate on my mac book pro which is running the developer's version of leopard... so I plugged it into my PC and activated it in a snap.
Once activated I just plugged back into the mac book pro and everything sync'd like a charm.
My blackberry pearl deactivated within a minute and I was making my first call on the iphone within 5 minutes of initiating the process.
I WAS an existing ATT customer, so perhaps the problems are for people with new activation? Didn't read the comments to determine if this is happening to existing customers at all.
Personally, it was about the easiest thing I've ever done in my life... bummer to all the people out there having problems but I would give it until morning before going into super spaz mode since it's not all that uncommon to have issues with technology integration and complex systems.
PS the phone is badass... two-thumb typing with no problems and can tell that it will not be an issue at all after using it for a while. I love my blackberry but it's not even in the same league as this thing.
jason carlton:
I was talking with a friend who bought one. I tried activating mine, no go. He started about 3 minutes after me, and was fine. I attributed it to my credit score/rating, but AT&T denies that -- every single call I've had with them today, they all claim I couldn't have even clicked on the EULAs if I wasn't approved.
First AT&T guy I spoke with said people have been experiencing up to 6 hours before it's activated.
Just luck of the draw, I guess.
Cheers,
Steve
No, that's B.S. There was definitely a problem with the credit authorization last night (I was pre-approved at the AT&T store, but their system wasn't giving out "magic" codes, which they said wouldn't matter). I don't know how you got such a loser on the support line. The people I talked with were friendly and fairly knowledgeable. Especially the last one, who went straight to her supervisor.
Too bad they're still powerless to help me after 12 hours.
My iPhone activation seemed to go ok. I am in Salt Lake City Utah, mountain time, got home
with my iPhone about 10:10 pm, hooked it up with the USB cable from my iPod, and iTunes 7.3
started up and I went through the process just like in the video, told them to transfer my number
from t-mobile, had a t-mobile sidekick, and luckily it did give me a second chance when I was
filling out billing address and address of primary use. I have a PO Box for billing, and it came back and said address of primary use cannot be a PO Box, so I clicked (o) different and filled in my street address and it went on, took less than 3 minutes and said it was activated.
I started playing with the web browser and my .Mac mail account and it was accessing the net.
I got an email from the iTunes store at 12:16 am MDT thanking me for activating my phone,
got an email from Apple.com at 12:53 am MDT thanking me for registering my phone, at
3:33 am MDT got an SMS message on my phone from AT&T thanking me for activating my phone, and I'm assuming the transfer of the old phone number to the iPhone will take some indeterminate amount of time. But, it makes calls, browses the web and does email and you-tube videos and everything else it is supposed to.
It was 102 F here today in Salt Lake City, with the sun shining down on us in line. Apple didn't bring us any water like I heard they did in Denver where it was only 88 F. :) They did have 3
black shirt apple employees stainding outside the locked doors from 2pm to 6pm, bet that was fun, don't know why, they could have just locked the doors and been inside in the cool air conditioning.
All in all, everything went well and painlessly so far for me. I sympathize with all the people having problems.
It hung up on me, but not for long. After about 20 minutes of waiting, I took apart my old phone and pulled out the SIM. I though that the old sim still trying to contact the ATT network may have bene slowing the process. In three minutes, I got the activation email. Just a thought guys.
i picked up my phone around 6 est and took it home, tried to get it activated, and it was just sitting there waiting for activation - for a while. i've heard reports that others were stuck at this screen. i powered the phone down by holding the button on the top, then when i powered it back up, it took a few seconds and activation completed. they may just be destroyed by too many people trying to get on, but i would try this if you're waiting for activation.
early impressions? this thing is frickin' amazing. so worth it.
Got mine at 6:10 pm EST. Did the iTunes setup at 8:00 pm EST. It now 7:00 am EST and I'm still waiting. And I'm not transferring my old number over, I just want a brand new number.
I hope AT&T melts...
Ditto, here. Bought at 7:30pm (walked into an Apple store with NO waiting, go Apple!), activation started at 9:15am, new number, still waiting (boo AT&T!)
Call the AT&T activation line.
Activated mine at 12 midngiht EST, it's almost noon on Saturday and I'm still waiting. Boo AT&T!!!! The Apple customer service told me New York in particular is experiencing a lot of delays due to the volume of new subscribers. My old T-Mobile number which I opted to transfer still works well (on my current Blackberry).
Is it a surprise that AT&T f-ed this up?
The sad thing is that AT&T (I liked them better when they were called Cingular) was probably the best choice for Apple. Verizon has a much better network but CDMA isn't going to get the iPhone around the world. AT&T has a crappier network but the right format (GSM). Unfortunately, AT&T (as was predicted) had no idea of what they were getting into. Having "barriers" to herd the line of buyers was the LEAST of their worries. You would think they would have stress-tested their infrastructure a little bit more.
Then again - could it be that those companies holding the numbers waiting to be ported are PURPOSEFULLY taking their time processing them? Hmmm...
Not surprised here, but wayyyy disappointed. I was an AT&T customer in the TDMA days and couldn't make calls from Manahattan. Then, as a Cingular customer, they changed me double the _published_ rate (I was on a corporate plan) for international dialing.
But, yeah, Verizon wouldn't have worked out. Both Verizon and Apple like to control the customer experience. In Verizon's case, they actually cripple the software on phones to make sure you can't do things like use your phone to access the network with a computer. Or to make international numbers come up "Unknown" in the call log. Brilliant!
ATT SUCKS. what a great first experience with them. I'm still waiting for activation..
And we are paying $36 for this activation service...
Well, i tried activating it at 6:45 P.M Eastern time... Still no luck! What is that?? 13.5 hours??
9 hours later and still no activation and no use of previous phone. AT&T is the weakest link...
Mine (finally) went from $600 brick, to awesome around 2am EST. Transfered a number from VW.
it took three minutes for me to activate a new account porting and existing users obviously are hosed possibly til Monday
And yes I'm doing this on the iPhone
I had to do the software update to 10.4.10 and the iTunes update. Plugged my iPhone in and in less than 3 minutes was activated without a problem. Been using my iPhone without a problem since about 9:30 pm EST.
My activation failed and I had to restore the software in iPhone. After that, activation worked. Now i'm gold. This thing is really awesome... Posting from it now. The lanscape keyboard in safari is much more useful than the portrait one however.
Like everyone, I patiently stood in line, got the last 8GB device at the local AT&T store here in Asheville, NC and went home to bask in the pleasure of my new phone...but no joy! First AT&T thought my account was a business account. That took 4 hours to reverse and 2 of that spent on hold trying to get someone at AT&T interested. That resolved then the iTunes site was too busy and another hour went by. Then, oh joy of joys it went through only to end pitifully at a message that AT&T was going to take "some time" to complete my activation. Finally at midnight I decided that there was to be no iPhone as promised and that sleep might ease the disappointment. I awoke happily with the expectation of finding the arrival of an email from the deathstar that my activation was complete, but to my constenation that was not the case. After another hour on hold to At&T I was told that it might take a bit longer. No idea how long. No apology.
Yes, this was not well planned. This was not well executed. This totally sucks. If ind myself wondering why I did not go ahead with that Nokia I considered, or, for that matter, anything else, or just stuck with my old but functional Moto Razr (THAT NOW DOESN'T WORK!!!)
AT&T bites. And Apple should have know better.
14 hours and still waiting - i have been on hold with att for 47 minutes now - this sux
I am going 14 hours of counting with NO cell phone after trying to activate mine. ATT said there is no ETA on fixing the problem. I had to bitch and complain and they refunded me the 36 dollar activation fee.
So I have the latest and greatest in paper weights =
It's been 14 hours since I've had the world's most expensive paperweight and I still have no service. AT&T is absolutely the most incompetent company ever. No one there knows what's going on. Every single one of them contradicts what the other one has said. There's no accountability in the system whatsoever. I simply can't believe that these bozos are a major player. I have spent more than 3 hours on the phone with them, and have ben on hold for the past 45 minutes while I'm typing this comment. Please tell me someone's out there reading these posts who can actually do something about this!!!
If you can't activate your iPhone, try power cycling the iPhone. That may do the trick.
Just got off the phone with AT&T. After no activation in 10 hours, the rep said it was APPLE's fault. It was APPLE's server's that were the problem, not AT&T's. That just feels like another AT&T lie...
I have a simple question.
I got my iphone and started the activation process at 7:49 when I got an email saying they would need more time. It is now 9:03am on SATURDAY! 12 + Hours later and I got nothing. I never blame Apple so I am looking to blame someone, and that person is the Verizon guy Mr. "Can you hear me now?" The people who are having trouble activate is everyone porting their number like me? Is Verizon just trying to screw with me or is there another problem?
Wow, 11 hours waiting for activation. Customer service told me that my current ATT phone (Blackberry) would work until I-phone was activated. Actually, it ceased working 30 seconds after the last "Submit" button was pressed in I-Tunes.
Four phone calls later, with an average wait time of 47 minutes, to customer service promising "it is working now" -- well -- it is not. The last call says that it is an "Apple Itunes problem". Currently, all ATT toll free lines are busy, and even the emergency line says there is some system upgrade in progress, so they can't help you.
Funny thing is, they have even removed the toll-free help number from the I-Tunes activation page, the one with the message "you activation requires additional time to complete".
Wow. A great case study in how to screw-up a product launch.
Ugh...I activated without any problem at 8:20 pm EDT.. I even received email within 2 minutes saying activation complete. EXCEPT... I still have no cellular service.. and of course, my other cingular phone has been deactivated...I called after 3 hours and the person tried "forcing" a signal to my phone..no avail....9:20 am and still no phone service...but everything else works!
Started my registration at 12:04 Eastern time... got at e-mail at 7:07 saying my activation needed more time. I just spoke with an AT&T Rep who told me the new official wait time is up to 24 hours.
My question is if they can't handle activation, how are they going to handle the network buildup?
Here is the number cause they took it off the activation page... 1877 419 4500 (although it will do you no good to call, it does make you feel a little better that everyone is getting screwed and not just you)
Yes - still no activation 9 hours later. What they did right - very smooth iTunes system (I'm a current AT&T user and had no problems getting thru the various screens up to the point of activation). What also went right is when activation didn't go through twice, AT&T at least provided a screen saying they need more time and will email it when ready (good customer service so you just don't keep trying). So I gave up waiting on it around midnight and slept on it. Unfortunately it is now 9 hours later and no activation so yes, I'm on the phone waiting to hear what's going on. It's a glorious looking inky black screen though :-)
I'm having the same issues with activation after attempting to port from Verizon Wireless (started the process at 9:45pm EDT) and still no luck. At least my old phone still works.
Have been trying to call through to AT&T (877-800-3701) and have been disconnected twice after waiting on hold for 15 minutes.
This is an absolute joke - $600+ for a device that you can only use to call 911.... with all of the hype, I can't believe that AT&T didn't plan effectively for this (even with temporary resources).
um how about waiting 14 1/2 hours for my activation and still nothing. Im calling around 12
I had no trouble activating at around 10:30 PM EST yesterday. The whole activation thing took about 5 minutes, I could make calls immediately after that was done, and within half an hour I was receiving all of my calls on the iPhone.
I ported my number from T-Mobile. I put in my T-Mobile account number from my bill but not an account password. If you skipped entering the account number (which is different from your phone number) you're screwing yourself, because then someone at AT&T has to call T-Mobile.
Although I do feel bad for anyone having problems, it sucks to throw down $600 on a phone and not be able to use it.
can someone confirm:: is it comfortable up your ears?
i remember the first blackberry i had was extremely uncomfortable. i would always use a headset.
Yikes!!
I'm in St Louis, MO... got my iPhone home about 7pm CST and it took less than 2 minutes to activate. Had 3 text messages immediately but didn't want to respond until my sync finished. My initial data sync took the longest... I'm already an AT&T customer so it was very seamless for me.
So far so good.... just a few software features that are lacking, but I have faith those will all be taken care of in immediate future!
I just got off the phone with multiple folks at AT&T. I first spoke with the activation department, where I confirmed that there are no issues with any of the information that I had submitted during the activation process in iTunes (including my Verizon Wireless account info). The rep was quite useless (just kept spouting the 24 hrs script) so I asked to speak with a manager there, demanding a refund of the $36 activation fee. The activation department wasn't able to do this, so I had to be transferred to the customer service department. Since I'm a new AT&T customer (changing from VZW), they couldn't do anything about the activation fee, since they don't have an account in the system for me.
This is completely unbelievable....
Now we know why they didn't go with in-Store activation. THe flawed sctivation process would have slowed sales to a crawl! Hours of waiting on line!
Hey Guys: PLEASE READ
If you are porting a phone number from another carrier, you are at the mercy of the service of your old carrier. And believe me, they don't want the process to go smoothly. Your old carrier MUST confirm with AT&T that they are releasing your phone number. If T-Mobile or Verizon take 12 hours, then it will take 12 hours and 4 minutes. Once AT&T has permission, then it will only take 4 minutes.
Also, if you read and do your research a head of time, you would know that you cannot port over a business account at this time.
I understand your frustration but place the blame where it ought to be....on your old carriers. If you are creating a new account and number (or once AT&T has received permission from your old carrier) it only takes 4 minutes. Apple & AT&T have their process figured out. You old carriers do not care how long they take to release your old number. By law I believe they have a 24 hour period to release. And by law, AT&T cannot activation your phone without the old carrier's permission.
As for unlocking the rest of the phone while waiting for activation, this is intended to prevent thieves who steal your iPhone from using it with another carrier or sim. They can't. And if they use another sim and activate with AT&T, the phone will be flagged as stolen (as long as you report it) as the iPhone's hardware ID is passed back to AT&T. This means that stolen iPhones are completely useless to thieves. Unless a hack occurs, it will be impossible to use even as an iPod. As an iPhone customer, I love this.
If you want to play around with a cell phone, get a linux open source one and play with that. I'm not happy at the thought of opening this phone up to thieves, or have amateur developers bring down the network.
I am an EXISTING AT&T customer. I am porting over an EXISTING AT&T phone number. There is no second carrier involved. They have deactivated the SIM on my old phone and, fourteen hours later, have yet to activate the iPhone. I have no phone service and no reliable information on when I will get phone service.
So I WILL blame AT&T.
Exsisting customer transfering existing plan here, 14+ hours and they de-activated my old phone in litterly 10 seconds. I'll add that my old media package that I was grandfathered in from years ago (unlimited data/text/mms for $20) was replaced by the new iPhone data plan so I'm giving up unlimited txt/mms messages but not much else as far as data go. As far as voice goes, I did have to give up my company discount on my rate plan for some reason, so my bill just went up 18% because of the phone I have. WTF does it matter what phone I'm using and how does that relate to my company discount plan?!
Well... I am porting a phone from ATT and still having activation issues. In fact, a friend ported from Verizon and his phone was working in 6 hours, and his current phone was working right up to the activation of the IPhone. I am at 13.5 hours with no service on my Cingular/ATT Blackberry and no activation on my I-Phone.
I was told the "24 hour delay" now on the customer service script, is not a real estimate, just to put off the activation problems until they can figure out what happened. Generally, if you are an ATT customer with a current data plan, you are most likely to have problems activating. New customers and transfers work pretty well.
I just posted my experience and it was not at all what you indicated I am now 12 plus hours moving a phone from the same account within AT&T.
The blame belongs with AT&T or Apple for the delay. This is not the fault of any other carrier.
Second, I placed an unauthorized sim in another iPhone and the phone has to be reactivated to work but all of the other features including wifi and iPod work fine.
i think that is the dumbest thing i have read.
a) people don't want to buy a linux cell phone to play with a linux cell phone. you might, but iphone purchasers don't.
b) you are NOT at the mercy of the old carrier, contrary to what you state. i know this because I specifically called t-mobile when i got the song and dance from at&t, and you know what, at&t hadn't even requested the phone number yet. some people *might* have a hold on their account, but in general, when another carrier requests a number port, they have to comply
c) once the phone number is requested, and if your phone number is eligible for transfer, but before the number is actually transferred, your phone will be activated and you can use the phone fully for everything except incoming calls. when the number finally does transfer over, you will receive incoming calls on your new phone, and the old phone will deactivate
Don't be so fast to blame the old carrier. After 17 hours of "Your activation requires additional time..." I called my old carrier (Alltel) - talked to the porting department. They had not even received the port request.
Time waiting: 36 hours.
Bought mine at 5am @ NYC store (5th ave). Wouldnt activate till just now....
but i slept thru it.. so I'll live...