How to reactivate a Tbolt

[budone]

I need to reactivate my old Dinc to fix a rebooting issue. I use it via WiFi at night. Once activate and the phone is updated, how do I go about reactivating the Tbolt? Was informed *228 is NOT to be used as it bricks the SIM card.

Thanks

PS  Ann154, I cant get past the activate screen.

[Ann154]

Huh? The *228 should work for the Dinc to activate it. Unless of course, it requires you to manual program the Dinc because of the Alltel plan and getting the right PRL loaded. To skip the activation screen, have you tried the back button or sometimes there is a skip button.

I just remembered for my Tbolt to recognize my number porting, I had to physically turn off the Aria. Perhaps it is the same thing for reactivation. Turn off the Dinc and turn on the Tbolt. Hopefully reactivation doesn't involve getting a new SIM card.

[PJNC284]

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Ann154 wrote:

 Hopefully reactivation doesn't involve getting a new SIM card.

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Think that's the problem.  Remember reading a few places that said activating a non 4G device will retire the sim card and you'll need to get another if you want to reactivate it.

[budone]

Sorry, late post. It should read, How do I reactivate the TBOLT after I get the Dinc back to life since *228 will not work. I think I will ask our buddy and will share the answer.

Wish I knew someone here with a VZW phone. I would ask to activate it on their line long enough to get the phone in a WiFi working state and switch it back.

PS. Thanks Cathy for fixing my post! 

UPDATE: Mike S as usual came through!  All I needed to do on the Dinc is click on Emergency Call button. It does not call 911, but brings up the dialer and from there I knew the rest. ##778 and program.

[AZSALUKI]

budone.....not sure if you use hot spot....but you will lose the free promo if you do this. also, i thought that after reactivating an old phone you could just power it down and power up the tbolt and it would prompt you to activate it? is this not the case?

[Ann154]

Well we can all find out together. I just activated the Droid Eris. I don't use the hotspot much anyways. I had been meaning to run the Eris active for a while and this has gotten me curious.

[Ann154 · Accepted solution]

Whew! That was an adventure!

Ok I have successfully reactivated the Thunderbolt without getting a new SIM Card.  I ended up have to call CS, but got a nice lady (Chelsea) who steered me where I was going wrong.

To start have your 3G device (old one/ switching from) powered down.  The battery out of the 4G device (new one/switching to) so you can see the IMEI number in the battery compartment and your SIM card out and flipped to the side with the numbers and the gold contact.

1. Log into your MyVerizon Account. 
2. Scroll down to the "I want to..." section and select "Activate or Switch Device".  Follow the directions until you get to the screen where asks for your device's identification number.
3. Enter the 4G device's IMEI number and hit the submit button.
4. On the next screen it will ask you (1) if you want a new SIM card mailed to you or  (2) ask for the SIM card.  Enter the SIM card number and click on the button that begins the process for verification.

Okay on the SIM card page, I hit a snag.  The reason, my Droid Eris wasn't turned off yet. So I called CS.  After telling what I wanted to do, she asked me to turn off the Eris.  Verified I didn't burn the SIM card with the *228 part.  Asked for the IMEI number.  Apparently she could see the SIM card number so I didn't have to give it to her.  Depending on your situation, you may need to give the SIM card number.  She worked her magic on her side and then asked me to put the phone together and boot it up.  Once it was loaded completely, she had me make a test call.  I let it ring until I got the voicemail for my work phone.  I also know the 3G works, because I heard my phone belt out the notification tone for gmails and emails.

On a side note, she had mentioned she a few calls about this very subject.  People wanting to reactivate 4G phone from a 3G phone.

Budone,

If you want to change the "solution" post to a different post, go the Options menu in the "solution post" and select the option "Not the Solution".  That will unsolve the thread and allow you to select a different post as the solution.  See picture below.

[willzzz99]

Actual device serial # in CDMA: ESN/MEID. In GSM/LTE: IMEI. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME, ESN == MEID == IMEI.

SIM Card Serial # (starts with 89) calls a IMSI #.

What is happening is you retired/kill service on the old phone via your phone's profile.

Then you add new device by giving VZW the 4G device serial #(IMEI). 

Then VZW assoicates that phone's IMEI with your SIM service plan of IMSI. The SIM card can be reused by switching the service plan on the attached profile by adding the OLD SIM card numbers Serial# which the VZW internal system will switch it.

If you request a new SIM Card # mailed to you when you request that option the VZW @ their regional locations that SIM is already active, you just swap the SIM and boot the phone (when you select a NEW SIM the system picks out a new SIM # in stock and then make a order to tell a human @ the warehouse to mail that one).

It's that simple.

Actually in reality on LTE OSS/BSS back-end systems the IMEI doesn't matter, what really matters is teh SIM card serial # (IMSI).

This is similar to a different subset SIM card serial # which is Vodafone branded used by VZW for international roaming.

They all have to be activated on the WEBSITE or by CSR (same thing the agent walks you through it.)

[willzzz99]

Since the SIM card is de-coupling the service (IMSI#) from the device # (IMEI) on 4G when you sell the phone all you need to do is remove YOUR SIM card from it. That's it.

When someone else wants to use it on VZW they get a NEW SIM card from a VZW store which will activate that SIM and attach is to a customer profile (they just scan it, reads the numbers faster). Then they just insert + boot the device.

[Ann154]

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AZSALUKI wrote:

budone.....not sure if you use hot spot....but you will lose the free promo if you do this. also, i thought that after reactivating an old phone you could just power it down and power up the tbolt and it would prompt you to activate it? is this not the case?

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When I looked up my plan & features detail on MyVerizon a few hours later after getting the Tbolt reactivated, it listed that I had the 4G hotspot promo on there. I recall seeing that the promo was being removed from the account when I activated the Droid Eris. I will check again later today closer to 24 hours after activation and see if it is still there.