Having Trouble Activating Your New iPhone 4S? Try This

With over a million iPhone 4S units pre-ordered and countless more sold through retail stores today, it’s no wonder that carriers’ activation systems are crippled. If you’ve been having problems activating your new iPhone, you’re not alone.

We’ve actually been having quite a few issues ourselves today, and have been searching for workarounds to get our new handsets active. After a lot of digging, I’ve come up with two pretty good alternatives to the typical activation methods…

The first method I came across is courtesy of Arnold Kim of MacRumors. He suggested trying to visit my carrier’s online activation page, and so I did. While this worked for several people, it kept redirecting me back to iTunes for further assistance.

Of course iTunes didn’t work, so I finally broke down and decided to call into my carrier’s (AT&T) customer service. Surprisingly, I was only on hold for a couple of minutes. And when the representative picked up, she was more than happy to help me.

After verifying my name and the last four digits of my social security number, we went to work. All I had to do was read her my phone’s IMEI and ICCID numbers (found on the back of the iPhone’s box in the barcodes), and within moments, I was activated.

Now these methods may not work for everyone. There’s several variables involved when dealing with cell phones, and the fix isn’t always a simple one. But if you’re having problems activating your iPhone today, these methods are definitely worth a shot.

Did either of these work for you?