Can't activate new SIM

[Stealth79]

I tried activating a new SIM (I'm a new customer, and not a happy one) and it won't work on either the app or the web-site. The chatbot is useless, and there is no way to contact customer service.

I'm very close to giving up and getting my money back from the CC company for the failure to deliver the product as advertised. It's not a good way to greet a new customer!

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Stellata   What plan do you want and what province are you in?  If you look at the Shop page in the top right you can change your province and see what is available there.  For example go to this link and you will see EN (ON) at the top.  Tap on the ON and change it to your province if not in Ontario.

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/on/plans 

[Stellata]

Hello, I am trying to activate a sim card. The message I got is that the plan is not available in my province, I should choose another one... Please help!

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Stealth79   That's great!  Yes my iPhone is set to 5G auto but it stays on LTE when I'm home indoors, sometimes in the yard I get 5G (rural also) and it switches to 5G or 5G+ in more populated areas.  The speed is still pretty good on LTE.

[Stealth79]

It's working...I just got my number activated. It seems to default to LTE when there is no 5G (like where I live in the country).

Thanks for your help today!

[Stealth79]

I suppose I can just keep it on 4G and not worry about it, and activate the 5G if I need it, and see if it works. It's the same price.

[Stealth79]

Apparently it can only be done on the app, but why the web-site has a link for it is a mystery to me too. The app isn't working either.

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Hdhdfjhffjjffjj   The app appears to be down at the moment, hopefully they are working on a fix.

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Stealth79  It seems to depend on the phone and the area, some have no problem with 5G others do which is why it's usually suggested that if it doesn't work on 5G try either T-Mobile and/or drop to 4G/LTE.  Seems to get it working for some at least.

[Stealth79]

Hi...will the network switch to 4G if necessary? It's not clear from their promo site that there is limited coverage of 5Gin the US.

[Hdhdfjhffjjffjj]

I'm trying to activate a new SIM. App doesn't work and on the website it gives me bad gateway error. I just want to activate the sim card. Why is this so trouble. Anyone know how to solve this issue?

[eddieO]

@Stealth79, 5G should work with T-Mobile but I've read somewhere that AT&T is not giving 5G to PM customers hence why you would need to switch to 4G and as @Phil_Adelphus mentioned about PM's VoLTE whitelisted phones, you could have a phone that supports VoLTE but if it's not on PM's whitelist that feature likely will lot work. My wife very recently experienced this on her trip to the US. She's not tech savvy at all but I showed her where the settings are to change on her Android phone before she went which helped out and she ended up loving the ability to freely call but mostly video chat through WhatsApp. Overall, we're very happy

[Stealth79]

That sounds very similar. It's the "tweaking" that creates issues. It seems like there are bizarre little hoops to jump through to make it work in some places. Monday I had to reset my network settings, causing all of my wifi passwords to disappear. That was the best they could offer, and it didn't work. So 5G in the US is still a work in progress as far as roaming from Canada, it seems. That's helpful too. Thanks!

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Stealth79   I've had no problems in almost two years except for one dropped call but there was a known issue at the time which is now said to be fixed.  The biggest downside for many is the lack of phone support,  it's primarily through this community who will refer customers to online support if necessary.  Experiences vary with travel in the US.  Many say roaming works seamlessly others have to tweak settings.  The two most common issues are trying 5G there (it often doesn't work on AT&T but does on T-Mobile) so safest to start off with 4G.  The other common problem is voice calls when people don't have a VoLTE phone on PM's whitelist, since there is no more 3G in the USA.   There is still 2G on T-Mobile for non VoLTE phones there but that is spotty and being phased out.  Of course in Canada it's not an issue as we still have 3G currently.

[Stealth79]

Interesting. On a scale of 1 to 10, how reliable are they in general? I've had bad experiences with some providers, like dropped calls and poor internet service in the US and while travelling across Canada. I was left stranded twice with no internet access by my current provider. Their customer service was of no help at all.

[Phil_Adelphus · Accepted solution]

@Stealth79 @EB0   The app is not working for me either, I just tried.  It's a bit late in the day now for scheduled maintenance, usually they do tell us ahead if something like that is anticipated.

[Stealth79]

I did a re-installation, no luck. It's too bad they don't tell you that the system is undergoing maintenance. Again, not a good first time experience. Thanks for your responses! It's helpful.

[EB0]

@Stealth79  It looks like the app is down, I got the same error, give it a try after a few hours

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Stealth79   Depending when you were trying, sometimes there is system maintenance going on overnight.  You cannot complete activation without using the app, unfortunately.  Maybe try uninstalling and reinstalling the app and try again while you wait for a response from customer service (their hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. eastern time). 

[Stealth79]

When I try to log in to the app it simply says "Error Something went wrong. Please try again". Multiple times.

On the web-site all I can do is go to a link called "Resume Activation", which leads me either to a "bad gateway error 502", or "unauthorized access".

[Stealth79]

I did send them a message. Thanks for that info.

[Phil_Adelphus]

@Stealth79  If the chatbot isn't helpful you can contact support by sending a private message using this link

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437 

An agent will reply at the envelope icon top right or tap your avatar for messages.

Maybe you can tell us here what happens, someone may have an answer (but no personal info as this forum is public) You do ned to use the app for activation.