Activation Help

[Perplexed Penguin]

I am hoping that you guys can help me out with this.

I moved up to Anchorage a few months ago and before I moved I call Verizon to verify that my phone would work up here. They promised me it would, but when I got up here I could not get my data to work. They had no clue what to do, but after searching the forum I find that I had to allow roaming. Thanks for the help.

Now the problem. My power button got stuck on my droid, so I could not shut off the screen, but had to wait for it to time out. I called Verizon and asked for a replacement. The guy assured me that I would be able to activate my phone up here. It arrived today and I was not able to figure out how to do it, so I called verizon. The woman I talked to told me that it would not be a problem, and she walked me through the steps for manual activation. She got to a point where she was not sure what to do and then forwarded me to a tech guy. He informed me that I could only activate voice up here and that I would have to ship the phone to someone in the lower 48 because I am on Verizon's extended network. I am hoping the tech guy was the incompetent one and not the guy that sent me the replacement. Is there a way to activate the data on my droid without shipping it out of Alaska? I now have two droids that do not work because my old one was deactivated when I began the activation process of the new one.

Thanks in advance.

 

[65Bowtie]

We have been stationed in Elmo since 07. They are correct, for regular non smart phones you have to activate the "digital" on it in the lower 48 in order to send and recieve pic and vid messages.

Same goes for smart phones. Also on the Droid X you have to be sure to enable extended network mobile network settings for it to work. We just did this with my wifes new DX.

 

[jbmcneely]

Ditto on activation

I just had the same problem. Just moving to Alaska from the lower 48 a few months ago, my Verizon phone (and data) worked fine. When I upgraded my phone to the Droid 2 (similarly being told everything would work without problems here), it turns out I also was only able to activate voice services. After multiple tech support assistance, the final word seemed to be I must either wait untill I travel to the lower 48 to activate it or give it to someone who is going on a short trip there.

Another suggestion they gave me, which they knew would likely not work, was to stop by ACS (Alaska Communication Systems) here in Fairbanks just as a shot in the dark, since Verizon phones work on the ACS network here. They too could not help because they cannot activate any Verizon phones, even if just for the data access.

Poor Droid, only knows data via WiFi right now...

 

[65Bowtie]

Your right ACS wont help, and they dont even want to accept your verizon phone if you try to transfer to them.

Verizon had once told one of my troops to see if they could get out near a cruise ship as they carry verizon towers. Not to likely, expecially in the winter time.

If you dont have someone to send it to I am currently stationed at Moody AFB GA. I know you dont know me from adam but i am willing to help. Question is, can you be without your phone for a week or two (depending on the shipping method)? PM me if I can help.

 

[jbmcneely]

Thanks for the offer. However, I will be traveling back to the lower 48 in December, I will just live with WiFi until then. Verizon did refund the next two months of my data plan to make up for it.