WEST U.S. -- Switching Alltel phone without new contract

[kingtermite]

I'm sure something like this has already been posted, but I didn't find it, so here goes.

My wife is a former Alltel customer. She's long out of her contract and doesn't want to enter a new one because we intend to get a joint plan soon.

Recently her phone broke. It's still working, but we fear it will die soon as top (flip top) is barely hanging on. I ordered an Alltel phone off Ebay (another flip-top). I thought I could just swap out sim cards like my t-mobile phone, but apparently that's not the case. These phones don't have/use sim cards.

Some quick googling led me to the *228 to reprogram. Sounded easy enough. I wrote down the ESN numbers from both her old phone and new phone (not sure if I'd need both or not). I dialed the *228 number from her old phone and after a few prompts it said I should dial it from the new phone.


Here's the tricky part.

The new phone is not on Alltel network yet, so when I dial *228 it doesn't go to the repgoramming network....instead it goes to something called "America's Network" or something like that with options to let me make a collect call.

How do I get it to go to the right place and reprogram for her? Because we DO NOT want to sign a new contract at the point.

Help? Suggestions?

[MrObvious]

Ok first off you are never under any obligation when you change your plan or activate the phone to sign a contract. That should be a load off of your mind. But the deal is that the ESN is what has to be registered in order to get it activated. You will have to go to an Alltel store, call them, or go online to the online account and put in the new ESN, then after they activate it in the computer you can just *228 your way to new-phoneness.

[kingtermite]

Originally Posted by MrObvious

Ok first off you are never under any obligation when you change your plan or activate the phone to sign a contract. That should be a load off of your mind. But the deal is that the ESN is what has to be registered in order to get it activated. You will have to go to an Alltel store, call them, or go online to the online account and put in the new ESN, then after they activate it in the computer you can just *228 your way to new-phoneness.

Ok...I'll try the online option first as I've never had great luck with any wireless customer service.

Thanks for the tip.

[bikebryan]

Originally Posted by MrObvious

Ok first off you are never under any obligation when you change your plan or activate the phone to sign a contract. That should be a load off of your mind. But the deal is that the ESN is what has to be registered in order to get it activated. You will have to go to an Alltel store, call them, or go online to the online account and put in the new ESN, then after they activate it in the computer you can just *228 your way to new-phoneness.

Going online won't help. Yes, it will register the new phone's ESN onto that line, but that is not the only problem. He is calling the OTA number but is using a network that uses ARN and will not allow outside callers to use it without providing CC numbers for billing, and it WILL bill roaming/minute.

So they will have to call in to do the change and the phone needs to be manually programmed.

[kingtermite]

Originally Posted by bikebryan

Going online won't help. Yes, it will register the new phone's ESN onto that line, but that is not the only problem. He is calling the OTA number but is using a network that uses ARN and will not allow outside callers to use it without providing CC numbers for billing, and it WILL bill roaming/minute.

So they will have to call in to do the change and the phone needs to be manually programmed.

I suspect you were right about this.

I did go online, set up an account and switch the phone online. I got a page telling me all was well and it would take 5-20 minutes to activate the phone. After 45 minutes the new phone was still going to that "America Roaming Network" thingy. I ended up calling Verizon customer support and got a tech to help me activate the new phone manually.

Seems to work OK now.

Thanks for the tips and help all.