Can't Activate AT&T Wireless Broadband

[balto]

(and gentlewomen...ahem)

in my experience, the wizard will leave you alone as long as you leave it alone! you don't need it at all. once you have paid att their $$ on the phone (ignore the scary questions about how you agree to sell them your firstborn; they only charge the exorbitant rate that they say they do (and I note here that verizon now is talking about  20 dollars a month -!!), the att "communication manager" will   work fine.

[Centex]

DrX,

The "invitation to activate" popup is one thing. The Activation Wizard itself is another thing.

Once you manage to have an activated SIM in your machine, the "invitation to activate" popup will have a new button that says "Already Activated." Click that button, and you're done with the "invitation to activate" popup. You'll never see it again.

Balto,

You started a sentence about pricing, and didn't finish the sentence.  ????

Centex

[balto]

Centex, somewhere recently I saw an ad for Verizon offering 20 dollars a month for phone internet service- which is what T-mobile costs on my Blackberry (T-mobile has terrible coverage here though and this phone is virtually useless- I will drop it soon).  However when I look  at the Verizon site the broadband plan seems to cost 60 dollars a month, so I don't know how I can find the lower rate I saw.

I think there are going to be dropping prices on phone internet service in the next year due to competition and I  regret having to get into a contract situation with ATT where I had to sign up for 2 years or pay a 300 dollar termination fee. Still, it may eventually be worth terminating, given the fact that we are paying 70 a month for ATT. We would have to get an external modem  (I have the built-in  one in the Thinkpad)- but I wish I had that anyway, as we could use the modem in different family laptops.
Balto

[JustDandy]

Well, thought I'd join the fray here.

Got my laptop through work back at the end of April.  Just now getting around to activating the wireless WAN so I can use it on the Amtrak train running back and forth from NY to DC.

Ran into similar problems, except when I click on the "Activate Wireless WAN" wizard, nothing happens - nada.

I can run the AT&T Communications Manager and it does start and is able to detect signal strength.  But I don't have any service/account setup.

So, I call Lenovo tech support -they say that it's AT&T's software and I need to deal with them directly.  After giving me the incorrect # to begin with, they give me the general AT&T # listed above. 

I call AT&T and at first the guy is trying to tell me I need to buy a card, etc, etc.  After I convince him that my laptop has the h/w built-in, he puts me on hold to go to talk to someone.  When he comes back, his answer is that I have to take the laptop into the store because National Sales is no longer allowed to activate laptops with built in wireless.  WHAT?!?

Clearly these machines can be activated remotely, so what's the frigging point of having me go into a store?  And how many of you really think the store is going to know what to do?  Hmm, no hands raised.

The frustration at spending hours dealing with this, to no avail, is incredible.  I'm glad I found this thread - misery loves company.

I'm debating whether to deal with a store or just take my business elsewhere.

Anyone else have any success lately?

Message Edited by JustDandy on 06-11-2008 09:31 AM

[balto]

 you are having the exact same problems I had- the ATT people don't want to talk to the Lenovo people and vice versa. No change at all in the last six months! Where is Mark, our Lenovo moderator?!

the trick is that the ATT people CAN call the Lenovo people if they really want to (see the discussion above)...so if you already have a paid ATT account set up (which you can do by phone) there is no reason the ATT software should not work if you skip the wizard and use the ATT communication manager software and you have the right  devices turned on in your machine.

ATT train wireless service between dc and baltimore is spotty, by the way. I wonder if Verizon service is better. (but you bought the computer preconfigured for wireless for ATT right?)

[Centex]

JustDandy,

You said:

So, I call Lenovo tech support -they say that it's AT&T's software and I need to deal with them directly.  After giving me the incorrect # to begin with, they give me the general AT&T # listed above.

Mark_Lenovo had an AT&T representative contact me. The AT&T representative told me that the Activation Wizard IS LENOVO'S SOFTWARE and IS LENOVO'S RESPONSIBILITY.

Such a deal....... like you say.... Just Dandy!!!!!! Each one is blaming the other!!!!!

Centex



Message Edited by Centex on 06-11-2008 07:57 PM