iPhone users face activation delay

NEW YORK, US: About two percent of people who bought the keenly awaited iPhone, launched on Friday by Apple Inc., have been experiencing delays in activating their service, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Telecommunications firm AT&T Inc., the iPhone's exclusive carrier for two years, said it was working on fixing issues related to the delays.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel described the problems as partly technology related and partly process related.

"We're just looking at everything to get customers activated in a timely fashion," said Siegel. He added that the problems were diminishing.

Siegel said the problem was partly caused by a high volume of customers trying to activate the service.

Other delays were caused by people trying to transfer work phone numbers to personal iPhone accounts. Siegel said that some of the delays were caused as AT&T needed to get approval from telecom managers before transferring a corporate service to a private service.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

The iPhone melds a phone, Web browser and media player, and costs $500 to $600, depending on memory capacity. AT&T has previously said that nearly all its stores have sold out of iPhones.