Dylan Schiemann

A log of the error messages from AT&T/Apple, for the iPhone (out of 4 total, 3 are working) that failed to activate correctly for us:

June 29, 9:22pm PT:

AT&T is now processing your activation.

You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete.

June 29, 9:33pm PT:

Phone service is scheduled to be disconnected on your current phone at or after 12:33 AM EDT on July 01. Please check your email and be prepared to reconnect and activate your iPhone before that time. Please call 877-800-3701 if you’d like to make other arrangements.

You will receive an email to (email address) as soon as your iPhone is ready to be activated. After you activate your iPhone and before your phone number is transferred from your current provider you will continue to receive calls on your current phone. Your iPhone will be able to make outgoing calls but will not receive calls until the transfer is complete.

Please refer to your Activation ID when calling.

June 30, 12:00 PM, I call AT&T for first time… I am assured activation will happen “real soon”

June 30, 12:59 PM (after calling AT&T for the first time):

We’re sorry. The phone number you entered is not eligible to be transferred.

Please re-connect to iTunes and don’t select to transfer your existing number to complete your iPhone activation.

June 30, 1:00 PM, I call AT&T, and am told that they will need to transfer my number manually. I proceed to setup the phone with a new number, then call back, and they initiate my phone number transfer manually.

June 30, 3:58 PM:

AT&T is now processing your activation.

You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete.

June 30, 4:00 PM, I call AT&T, wait for a very long time, am transferred around between departments, and I am told that my activation will “definitely happen today since I started the process yesterday”.

June 30, 4:30 PM, I call AT&T, and talk with someone in the port request department. He expresses concern that because an AT&T rep attempted to initiate my phone # transfer while activation was proceeding, that activation may fail and I may need a new SIM card.

June 30, 6:31 PM:

We’re sorry. AT&T has identified a problem with the information you provided.

For more information, call 877-800-3701.

Please refer to your Activation ID when calling.

June 30, 7:20 PM, I call AT&T, and wait for 40 minutes. At first I am told my iPhone is activated. I explain that it is not. After 30 more minutes of discussion, I am told that AT&T believes that my SIM card is already in use. I am told I have to return to an AT&T store, and then start the process over from home. So let me get this straight. I am sent an email that tells me to call AT&T, I wait for over an hour, to then be told to return to the store? An extremely frustrating portion of this entire process is the very cryptic and uninformative email messages from AT&T. At this time my old LG phone no longer sends or receives calls as it has been transferred to AT&T.

Through the course of the day, I spoke with around 8-10 people from AT&T. About half were useless, arrogant, and ready to pass the blame and not accept responsibility for anything. The other half were friendly, extremely helpful, and eager to fix the problem. Unfortunately, every time I ran into a new problem, I was stuck on hold for a long time and then had the misfortune of being stuck with the first type of rep.

The bottom line is that AT&T somehow thinks that this type of lag time is somehow acceptable because a lot of people bought iPhones at once. It is an utter embarrassment for the Apple brand that AT&T is providing such a poor out of the box experience for so many faithful and loyal Apple enthusiasts.