iMessage and FaceTime activation on Wind is working right now

Rob Attrell

October 8, 2015 11:51am

Wind Mobile has always been a little fish in a big pond, competing with the likes of Rogers, Bell and Telus using cheaper, city-focused unlimited plans. For years, the Wind network wasn’t compatible at all with the iPhone, until 2014 when the carrier officially began supporting Apple’s phones, as long as you bought (and brought) your own. However, there were several limitations with using an iPhone on the Wind network, including the fact that iMessage and FaceTime would not activate correctly with a phone number.

However, in a Reddit post this weekend, several users confirmed that they were able to activate iMessage on their iPhones, separate from any obvious software update. This would suggest that something has been switched on from Wind’s end to enable the activation of these features. Wind Mobile has yet to confirm this is actually a permanent change on their end, but an Apple Genius has apparently confirmed that users should be able to activate iMessage and FaceTime on the Wind network now.

We have reached out to Wind for confirmation, but for the time being users are reporting successful activation on their devices.

  • Philosoraptor

    Indeed it worked for me.

  • Jesse

    I was wondering when Mobilesyrup was going to write about this!

    • Daniel Bader

      We were waiting for Wind to give us an official response, but they didn’t get back to us in time, so we published.

    • Jesse

      Oh yeah makes sense

    • will

      Please let us know when wind gets mobi’s spectrum or LTE deployment timeframe. Keep up with the good work and gun podcasts.

    • Dave

      And what about the “confirmation” of mobilesyrup regarding the transforming mobilicity customers onto rogers network due to the mobilicity-rogers deal?

      At the time you guys “confirmed” that it would happen in 2015, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen before 2021, or mobilicity brand getting destroyed by rogers, whichever comes first.

    • Daniel Bader
  • will

    Apple acceptance before LTE deployment?

    • McNucklefuts

      I’d say they saw an increase in iMessage complaints based on offering the refurbished iPhone 5’s on their network. So they probably deemed it financially necessary to buy the equipment necessary to activate this properly. Prior to that device being offered it was probably too small of a user population for them to think it mattered much.

    • It’s Me

      All very likely, except that they wouldn’t need any extra hardware. Their bug was in how they handled complex SMS messages that are required for activation of these services. Basically, when the phone sent a hidden text to Apple, the response from Apple was mangled which prevented activation from completing. They likely needed a push to get their network guys to figure out where they were screwing up the messages.

    • McNucklefuts

      Either way! Its a good, though small, step!

  • Benjamin Lehto

    Now maybe they can start working on enabling download/upload speeds greater than 0.10/0.01 across their entire network. Some sarcasm added for effect.

    • Robobotic

      New sites are expensive!

  • How long before Bell starts complaining about this now?

  • Nena

    Good news for all those iAddicts!

  • HeyYoWL

    Does that mean that people can stop using the workaround to get data working on iPhones?

    • Robobotic

      What’s the workaround?

    • Nena

      Since when did you need a workaround? Just set the APN settings

  • Earnest Vinson

    I reported this to wind Day 1 of the 9.0.2 iOS update, this is when I saw the change happen, I contacted WIND on Facebook, Twitter and at their call centre and posted photos as well. Sad news is they never got back in touch with with. I was also the 1st customer to activate an iPhone, purchased the phone in Syracuse NY from T-Mobile, brought it right to the WIND store at Bayshore shopping centre, we cut the sim card (wind didn’t have that particular sim card at the time and I still own it today) and it worked , then i went to the Mobilicity kiosk next to WINDs and it worked when they installed their sim card. Wind never has given me credit for the 2 findings and it frankly makes me sad since Ive been with them for Years using the iPhone before anyone else was.