AT&T having widespread iPhone activation issues?
It seems like AT&T may have underestimated the sheer volume of iPhone activation requests that they were going to have to process following Friday’s product launch. There have been a number of independent accounts of significant delays between plugging your iPhone into iTunes, and actually being able to use your new Jesus Phone. Some users are reporting delays of up to 12 hours for handset activation. As I’m sure you can all attest, there’s nothing worse than ripping the packaging off of a brand new gadget, only to find that you can’t use it immediately for one reason or another…come on, AT&T. We want our fix, and we want it now!
UPDATE: BG let me know that a lot of users having activations issues are either old AT&T legacy subscribers (people who never left "Blue" to convert to "Orange"), and new customers. For the most part, as far as we can tell, existing customers are getting in while the gettin’ is good!
My friend switched from Sprint to AT&T for the iPhone. He bought the phone around 6:30pm Friday night and was still having issues at 2pm Saturday.
The staff in the Cingular store were running around, not knowing what to do or say because there was about 6 other people all saying the same thing. But you are right, everyone who had an issue were not previously AT&T customers.
The manager was so rude to me when I told my friend that the iPhone sucked because it didn’t run on UMTS or HSDPA. He told my friend that WiFi was faster. Man, these guys will lie through their teeth to make themselves look better.
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@Mark its business to them.
Also a reason why I hate buying phone I did a switch from BLUE to ORANGE and that was hell. But I really was not surprised.
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I am AT&T customer. All I needed was the data plan changed to the iPhone data plan. I started my activation at 9:50pm EST on Friday. As of 4:15pm sunday I still have not received the activation email I so desire. I refer to it now as the iBrick. I will do nothing until it is activated. going on 41 hours of nothing. I am putting it back in the box and returning it as soon as the doors open at my local AT&T store Monday. Check out this discussion at Apple http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1016349&tstart=15
Apple/AT&T- My middle finger salutes you!
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I am a legacy Cingy/AT&T user.
I dropped my Treo 750 in favor of an 8GB iPhone last night.
I activated in less than 5 minutes with iTunes. I would have been faster, but I hit the back button like a dufus and had to retype crap.
This phone rocks. Even tapped my encrypted WIFI in seconds…
The satellite images on the Google maps are tight!
Good luck folks…! No haters, please.
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Purchased the iPhone Friday 6:00PM. New customer for
AT&T….still waiting for Activation
It is now Sunday 4:00pm…if it is not up and
running by Monday night…the phone goes
back….46 hours an counting
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You see, your blaming at&t that are issues of “Apple, Inc.” The activation has nothing to do with at&t not being able to handle it. It has to do with Apple not getting all the information to us. And if you were porting your number over as a new activation…well, then you may want to speak to your previous provider as to what the hold up is. They may not be porting your number quickly to make at&t look bad.
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Try almost 36 hours and counting. CS is completely unhelpful. I’m porting from VZW, and might just cancel the port if this keeps up.
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I am a new AT&T customer I bought my phone 11pm on friday it wasn’t activated until 9pm on saterday
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You got me beat. It took 40 hours and more than a dozen phone calls to get ‘er done (I’m also a legacy AT&T customer), but I’m finally able to write this message from my iPhone. Certainly the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had. Good luck to you.
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LOL. Told you there were going to be major issues with that p.o.s. and guess what, I WAS RIGHT!!!!!!
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Ok fine. I didn’t predict them but everybody knew there were going to be some major issues, isn’t that right Steve?
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No matter how well the plan was laid out, there will always be some type of start up issues. I probably never would have ported an old number. I just would have started fresh. I am sure that it will all smooth out for the next wave. I do feel bad for the ones that are still not active. Hold on!!
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guys, it is not apples fault! All iTunes does is collect the info and deliver it to AT&T. Thats all. You really apple is activating these things? Its at&ts problem
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I picked up my 8gb iPhone friday night at 8:15, finished honey-do’s at 1:30 am (so she wasn’t pissed about a $600.00 phone). Downloaded Itunes 7.3, switched from Sprint to ATT and was running in about 10 minutes. Smoothest cell-phone transaction ever in
my life. On launch day of all things. ATT, I am impressed.
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Purchased my iPhone Friday night in LA, activaation took about 5 minutes but I am porting from Helio to AT&T and have just surpassed the 48 hour mark.
There’s nothing better than having to carry two phones. One to make calls on and another to recieve them.
Spoke to AT&T customer service and they are placing the blame squarely on Helio/Sprint. For joy!
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To Greg and others who are claiming issues they obviously know so little about. Unless you went through the utter nightmare of activation issues, don’t claim you know a quick fix. Those of us who were hitting the 24hour, 30hour, 48 hour marks had heard all of the excuses, all of the “well obviously it is because of (x)” explanations. There was no one quick answer. New AT&T customers, Old AT&T customers, Tmobile’s, Sprint’s, Verizon’s family plans, individual plans, corporate group discounts, and every other possible option…. all had issues. We all know the AT&T and Apple support numbers by heart, knew our six digit order code and often did recite it in our sleep, and went through customer service departments in Canada telling us how to unlock a device they had never seen in person. It was a bad scene, and I am glad that recent purchasers seem to be having more and more positive experiences with activation.
And btw, it has NOTHING to do with another cell phone provider porting your number… it is AT&T who ports the number over, not the current carrier.
I eventually had to go through T-Mobile’s porting department who laughed when I relayed my last conversation with AT&T, and called AT&T’s porting department for me, and conferenced in while AT&T straighted out my issues.
It was horrific.
But, love the phone.
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Hah! Great technology, and a decent decision by the major players — Apple and/or AT&T to activate the iBrick via iTunes…Steve Jobs certainly would not mind the extra gazillion web hits and iTunes downloads…But tying the iBrick activation to an algorithm that chokes under a mere gazillion activators at once? The AT&T customer service reps are facing a maelstrom of nightmarish phone calls from angry customers who just spent $600+ on a stylish brick…Their bosses, managers, and managers’ managers, and their bosses…and their bosses cannot do anything to manually help the consumer…
…a non-scalable fault-intolerant algoritm and infrastructure has just made probably the biggest technology buzz/launch in recent history one of the biggest debacles in terms of customer service…Great technology, cute technology a la Apple…
But this product launch is a HUGE FAILURE in my book…ahh well, Steve Jobs is laughing his way to the iBank…iPhone in tow.
Great keynote speech 20 days ago at the dev conference, I’d love to one-day use the wonderful technology your team has built…
Gee — Snazzy features aside…I’d settle for a phone call!
Or a real-life human being who can zap life into my iBrick like the good ol’ days.
Ry
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Are you an old blue AT&T Customer? IS so, how did you get them add on the data plan? I am a “Former AT&T -Old Blue” Customer and they wont add the data plan unless I change to their new plans and give up my old plan, which I am not willing to do. Someone please help, I just ordered an unlock IPhone from EBAY- I am praying that it will work once I get it
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I’m having the same problem as we speak. I bought a Blackberry Pearl from AT&T on Saturday night and here we are coming up on Saturday again and I’m still carrying around 2 phones. I called Helio and they can’t seem to give me a straight answer about what is happening. How did they fix yours?
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Legacy AT&T Customer
Just spent 4 hours waiting in line at an apple store. Guess what just because I am a old customer it means I cannot get a new Iphone via apple. I must go to an AT&T Store. I am so mad, I am contemplating changing my account to another service provider. Old this means is that AT&T does not care enough about customers like me. Giving Up on the “Jesus Phone” for now.
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