How to update an Aple iPhone on prepaid.

I am personally an iPhone owner, and just recently sold my device to a friend. I decided then to go out and buy an 8 GB model and upgrade my number from there. I have read many things on Digg about the iPhone and prepaid being a problem, but I did not think it would be to much of a problem.

I first got the 8 gb model, and the person at AT&T told me to put the new SIM card in the phone, and try to activate it telling iTunes that I was going to replace a number on my line. This method does NOT work with any Sim card you may try. Unless you are starting a new account, the method through iTunes alone will not work to replace a phone.

Next, iPhone Activation support told me to create a new account and then they would re-align the SIM and IMEI numbers. this was not the case either. What happens there is that the service creates a new account, and then gives you a new number, without searching for your own number, so your sim is then useless.

Finally, the method that worked was to change the SIM and IMEI information with AT&T, then act like you are creating a new gophone account. once you do this, you will then be prompted for all of the information when you started your account, but it will then port your number over to the new phone, so it is kind of like porting your number. It will take quite a while for this to work however, so just wait 2 to 4 hours.

Some people will run in to the problem that the AT&T iPhone Activation support team will say that this process can not be done. From what I observed, one half of the staff in that department will say this, and you should just get a contract. The other half will redirect you to the prepaid department, and will get this taken care of. It is important to remember that you deal with the prepaid department, not the activations department, because they will automatically fix the IMEI and SIM enterings that need to be done.