Activation Questions Go Here

[jt_83]

If you call the 877 number, tell them to activate your 4G sim card on their end. It is as simple as them typing in the number on the card into a computer.

 

[Geri O]

The techs at my store were doing that and the 877 guys were saying "just be patient, it will activate eventually". After 24 hours, we were ready to try something else.

Geri O

 

[specularius]

Okay, finally got mine activated after 24 hours....

The store guys and gals (and I'm proud to say, buddies of mine) finally resorted to putting my SIM card into an HTC Thunderbolt and activating it, then putting it in my Bionic to finish the process. They are thinking that the Bionic is looking for a 4G signal to activate and can't default to the available 3G signal. And as I left the store with a working Bionic, they were setting up their demo Thunderbolts to begin activating the rest of the group that had Bionics not activating.

If that really is the case (and it seemed to be with mine and 2 others), then what a goofy thing to miss. One of the techs on the phone said that the back of the Bionic must be off in order to activate. Ehhh, we kinda scratched our heads over that one, LOL.

Oh, forgot to mention, the Bionic can be set to look for 3G service just fine, but that can't be done until the phone is, aha, activated.

At any rate, I have a working Bionic that I'm enjoying very much.

Geri O

I am in central Louisiana and had alot of trouble activating. I was able to get the phone usable by pressing the four corners on the green android screen to bypass the initialization. I could then put the phone in cdma only mode. This got the phone working, but would not activate the sim. The phone would not make a data connection in cdma/lte mode. I traveled to south Louisiana today and once I got out of the central Louisiana network, everything started working as it should. Lte is awesome! Once I made it back to central Louisiana, everything went south again and I had to set the phone to cdma only to get it to make a data connection again. There appears to be a major network issue in central Louisiana. It probably has something to do with the conversion of the centennial assets that flipped on August 1.

 

[Fernie O.]

So after all the waiting for my Bionic to activate....now it won't connect to the network....DAMN! I went round and round with Verizon and did a few factory resets and still nothing....they're sending out a new one and I'll have it Tuesday....it sucks to be me BIG TIME....oh well what can you do right? On a good note...I at least got to hook up wifi and mess around with it until the replacement arrives....

 

[Spoon]

Do the reps at the Verizon store get upset if you take your new DB (purchased elsewhere) in for contact info swapping from your old phone?

Yes they do.

you're wasting their time. They're on commission. They're there to sell. And when you purchase else where .. you're not supporting their store, which leads to less sales, which leads to eventual store shut down.

 

[jt_83]

The techs at my store were doing that and the 877 guys were saying "just be patient, it will activate eventually". After 24 hours, we were ready to try something else.

Geri O

The first guy I talked to told me the same thing. I called back and talked to another person (woman) who was super helpful, and activated the sim for me. It took the phone maybe 45 seconds to activate after that. Verizon really screwed the pooch by taking away the ability for the user to activate the sim online.

 

[Grumple]

I have been trying for an hour now, mine simply will not activate. I called them earlier from my other phone and she said she activated the 4g sim for me but no luck. Now I am pretty much stuck, my other phone was deactivated so I have no way to call them.
I wonder if it is because I am in an area that doesn't have 3g or 4g, would that make a difference?

 

[Geri O]

I have been trying for an hour now, mine simply will not activate. I called them earlier from my other phone and she said she activated the 4g sim for me but no luck. Now I am pretty much stuck, my other phone was deactivated so I have no way to call them.
I wonder if it is because I am in an area that doesn't have 3g or 4g, would that make a difference?

Yes, it does. I'm pretty certain that the phone won't activate without a data signal. Might need to take it to the store and have them activate it. Also, there may be no point in having a phone like the Bionic without being able to get at least a 3G signal.

Are you sure about that?

Geri O

 

[Grumple]

Yup, no 3g or 4g at all in this area, all I can get is the 1x data or whatever it is. There is still a point to having the phone though, because I don't live in this city (I do go to college here though) and even without data I can download games and apps to keep me entertained which I couldn't do on my feature phone. To make it even worse, there's no Verizon store in this city either.

*UPDATE*
Yep, that's what it was, it has to be activated in a 3g area. So they switched me back to my old phone for the time being, which renders my Sim card useless. Now they're going to send me a new sim card, and then I'm going to have to drive 25 miles to get to Pennsylvania where there is 3g coverage. I'm so mad right now, honestly, I'm in a college town with almost 30,000 students here, you'd think Verizon could put up a 3g tower somewhere nearby, AT&T Sprint, and T-Mobile all work here just fine!

 

[wks2002]

I received my Bionic yesterday in the mail and had the same difficulty activating. I was upgrading from a Blackberry pearl, so I have always dialed *228 to activate and was lost when the phone would not activate after numerous Sim card and battery pulls and several retrys. I went to the internet and found this and a few other message boards with people having the same problems so I thought I would post my success story and what I did to achieve those results.

First of all I touched the four corners to get past the android icon and went to settings to changed to 3G only. This initially did not help so not sure if this was necessary as I live in a 4G location.

I then loged into Verizon.com and went to MyVerizon. On the home page I clicked on "Activate or Switch Device." I choose the line I wanted to switch, skipped the backup as I had no contacts I needed to transfer. The website already had my Bionic on the next page and knew which phone I was switching to so I was excited! I told it to proceed and it then stated that I had a current order and I needed to try again once that order was complete.

So then I went back to my phone and tried the activation again and when I turned it on I saw the 3G symbol next to the flashing triangle, something I had not seen before and the activation worked within seconds. I am guessing loging into verizon and attempting to switch the device unlocked something within verizon's server and therefore allowed my phone/sim card to activate.

Not sure if anyone else will have the same success but though I would post this since it finally worked and just happened to be right after I went to the website and tried to switch devices. Good Luck!!!

 

[rpscott02]

what is the 1-877 number? having the same issue and got the same story from vzw reps about waiting it out. Although, I was also getting an error after the "wait until your phone has been activated" screen

 

[rjm1cc]

This is why I stopped buying in the store and started buying online. In the store, they are NOT happy with people like Droid800 and I who pay full retail price. Which is fine, because I realize they are commission based, but it always seems to really show in their faces and attitudes.

As far as the whole activation piece, remember you are not activating a phone you are activating a SIM card on your account. The two are completely separated from each other. Once that SIM card is activated you can stick it in any 4G phone and it will work. That is why there is no *228 OTA programming with 4G phones. So you have 2 options:

1) Have them activate the SIM on your account in the store. You will notice the SIM card is pulled from a cabinet not from the phone box. If you want to verify they did the activation correctly they can put it any 4G phone (e.g., demo unit) and test before you leave. There should be no arguing about this. If they do, it's likely the rep just isn't fully trained yet which is not their fault.

2) Buy the phone, have them hand over the SIM card and activate the SIM using the 888 number.

If you're concerned it won't work, have them plug it into a demo phone and make a call with it before you leave. If it doesn't work, that means they set your account up improperly.

Cory does this mean you can activate the Bionic's SIM card on a Verizon plan without a data plan?