iPhone 6s Plus on Cricket - iMessage won't activate?

[iMore Question]

Iphone6sPlus on Cricket - Imessage won't activate

We bought an iphone 6s plus 64gb Space Grey when they first came out...it was unlocked from T-Mobile as soon as we bought it. We popped a cricket sim card in it and imessage activated immediately.

3 weeks later imessage stopped working after we went to Georgetown, Ohio (less than hour away from where we live in Cincinnati. After arriving imessage stopped working..and ever since has never worked.

We have been working with Cricket and Apple to resolve the issue. Things done so far:

1. Replaced Sim Card 5 times (as requested by cricket)
2. Had phone replaced under warranty through Apple and received factory unlocked iphone 6s plus 64gb space grey. ( as requested by cricket)
3. we have restored the IOS to factory, we have reset network settings, we have used different appleid's.

All appleid's we try authenticate every single time.
We can text, call and send pictures etc.
Imessage works with the email address

But whenever we try to register the phone number it fails. Apple is blaming Cricket and Cricket is blaming apple.

As anyone run into ANYTHING like this before?
What do you think is happening?

we have 5 lines on the account...and one of them is an iphone 5s that runs 100% fine and imessage activates.

Cricket says that imessage doesn't use their equipment to communicate with apple..lol...which is ridiculous. They tell us they don't have control over SMS, Silent SMS or SMS short codes. They told Apple that they don't even HAVE silent SMS services.

I'd love to move away from Cricket however AT&T is expensive and other cheaper services aren't available in Georgetown, Ohio where 1 of our family members goes biweekly to take care of family.

I have contacted Apple Corporate and Cricket Corporate (at&t) offices and have been waiting 3 days for replies. Apple came back and gave us a $100 gift card for the apple store (gee thanks)....but Cricket just keeps saying it's apples fault...and that our phone is broken...

When I put a tmobile sim card in the iphone...everything activates just fine...

If anyone has any secret phone numbers or an insider at Cricket please feel free to contact me...lol.

Apple has been very generous with their time and phone calls...unlike cricket who tells me that because it is BYOD they can't help me....but when I ask them what they would do if I bought a Cricket Iphone and this happened...they tell me they would have me call Apple....

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: Iphone6sPlus on Cricket - Imessage won't activate

Cricket doesn't have anything to do with iMessage. That's Apple. When you say you restored to factory, did you do it from a back up? Did you sign in to iMessage?

 

[MobileHub999]

Re: Iphone6sPlus on Cricket - Imessage won't activate

It sounds like this could definitely be an issue with Cricket. When you try to activate your phone number with iMessage it sends a silent SMS message to your carrier who has to verify it and send it back to Apple.

It's kind of like the SMS message follows a path: iPhone sends silent verification SMS -> Carrier verifies phone number -> iMessage server verifies -> iPhone activates iMessage.

If the message is disrupted or does not verify at any point then your phone number cannot activate with iMessage. Are you able to activate iMessage using your Apple ID email address? That will tell you for sure whether it's an Apple issue or carrier issue right there. Activating with your email address only bypasses the carrier so if it activates just fine that tells you that the Apple side of things is working.

I hope this info helps!

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

Re: Iphone6sPlus on Cricket - Imessage won't activate

I had that a while ago and I just let the phone do its things over night and first thing I knew in the morning it had actived.