All over the world, people have been encountering numerous problems trying to activate their new iPhone 3G units through the latest software update for iTunes. Despite promises of being able to download and install all their updates from home, various network problems have been bogging down the process on an international level.

Currently clocked at version 7.7, using the latest iTunes software update to active the new iPhone models have been nothing short of frustrating. Apparently, Apple underestimated the load on their servers, which left many users stuck on the iPhone activation screen.

It came to a point that traffic was so bad on the official Apple site that even the iTunes link disappeared for a time. Even people who have gone to their nearest Apple Store to activate their phones directly have succeeded with extremely limited results - with some waiting over an hour before finishing the process.

AT&T recently released an official statement explaining the situation:

We have had reports that customers attempting to download new iTunes 7.7 software to their new iPhone may get an error message saying "page not found." We have reported this issue to Apple. While Apple works to resolve this issue, we are asking customers to sync their newly activated phone later at home.

The reason behind this is connected to the fact that firmware 2.0 isn't different from the previously released firmwares. The new firmware needs to update both the phone and reauthenticate the service upon updating. Due to the heavy amount of traffic clogging up the site, when the iPhone reaches for authentication, the server isn't always ready to reactivate the service. This causes bricking in many of the newly bought phones, as well as some first gen iPhones.