Quick Update on iPhone Activation…

I feel like I’ve spent more time (43 hours waiting on activation!) on this than most people so here’s some info for anyone having issues.

It’s DEFINITELY an ATT issue with porting of numbers. Porting unfortunately also includes Cingular. Thanks to the magic of corporate synergy (sarcasm), Cingular seems to have only changed in name and until you move into an iPhone or new locked ATT device (more on this in a moment), you are still clearly in the OLD system.

Yesterday Apple told me to speak to ATT about getting a new SIM, which ATT told me (at the store) was impossible. Today Apple told me (at the store) they had no SIMs to offer (I should speak to ATT!) and that they would NOT give me a new iPhone. Their POV was that the iPhone was fine and that it was just a matter of time… Around midnight I spoke to someone who was able to manually remove and re-add my iPhone to the plan and try an OTA activation … That was done again today and failed.

It was not until a call later today I learned there’s some magical bit that has to get associated with your account that until it does will leave you in limbo. My limbo lasted 43 hours… The magic bit is something called “Apple Tracking.” Until this is associated with your account, you will continue to see that you need more time for activation to occur.

During my dad’s activation this afternoon (after mine went through!) he encountered one hitch which is that he uses PayTrust to manage bills and that address (South Dakota) did not match where he was planning to use as his main address (outside Philadelphia). Amazingly ATT called within minutes of his second attempt to process and walked us through a walk-around. The suggestion was to set up a matching address with billing and usage and change once it’s activated. Once this was done, my dad’s iPhone activated a moment later. Knowing my issues well enough I suggested that instead of porting his number from Verizon, he go with a new ATT number and just port it later once everything was running.

The process is getting smoother but I am not sure that’s really because anything has been fixed, and more because enough time has passed for the customer reps to have a pooled an amount of learning and are actively sharing. Over the course of my conversations, the people seemed to have

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