"Your Optus account is not eligible to enable mobile data on your Apple Watch"

[williammc]

As per the Subject title of this post, I am facing an incredibly persistent error when trying to set up the cellular functionality of my Apple Watch. Devices in question are iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch series 4, 44mm, GPS + cellular. I've been in contact with Optus twice and Apple twice. Getting nowhere. Optus advises that the my account is eligible for use with the Apple watch, and that everything looks good on their end. A store rep changed some settings on my service today to see if that might work, with no luck. Troubleshooting has been so far:

- upated both devices to the latest OS

- reset network settings on iPhone

- unpaired and factory reset watch, 3 times

- turned on VoLTE in mobile data settings on iPhone 

- acquired and activated a brand new SIM card for this service

- pulled out half of the hair on my head

- thrown phone at wall (almost)

I've seen and read through forums of users experiencing similar issues - no working solution has been found for my case. I will create a chat in the myoptus app (when it's working) and ask to escalate to the activation team. I'm sick of the back and forth. Is anyone here able to provide some insight, instructions or information that might help me out with this? Literally any help is appreciated at this point. 

Cheers,

Will

[Dan_C]

Hey, there.

I've been collating threads similar to this one.

Just to confirm:

Did you have a watch with Numbers hare enabled before the series 4 Watch?

Most of the issues we're seeing are customers trying to transfer their existing number share service across to a newly purchased watch/wearable.

[williammc]

I have never had an Apple Watch, nor used number share on my service before. The previous owner who I purchased this off of used number share with the watch - they are also an Optus customer. 

My issue was finally ticketed and escalated to the higher level tech team. Not sure what they've done, but this afternoon the "Set Up Mobile" option suddenly became enabled. I was able to successfully set up the watch for mobile usage. For future incidents and reference, my ticket number was 22588407.

[williammc · Accepted solution]

So, this turns out to be a nationwide issue with certain optus accounts. Finally, something has gotten through to them. After 7 chats, and two store visits, someone finally logged a problem report ticket for me. That was yesterday.

This afternoon, at about 2pm, it magically gave me the option to set up mobile. So something on their end was adjusted, and it fixed the issue. If anyone ends up in the same boat, after trying a considerable amount of troubleshooting, this is likely going to be the same resolution. My ticket number was 22588407 - mention this to fast-track the gruelling process of resolving a similar issue.

[ShibaNita]

Hi Dan_C.
I’ve been having the exact same problems. Been trying to activate number share on my new Apple Watch 5. I’ve re-paired it to my iPhone 8 at least a dozen times and spent as much time chatting with a number of online tech support. Still getting the same "Your Optus account is not eligible to enable mobile data on your Apple Watch". Seems like no one I’ve come across knows how to fix this problem. They are all giving me the same advice: re-pair watch to phone, re-install Watch app. NOT WORKING!

[Ray_YC]

Hi Shibanita,

If you have a social media account, please then send a PM to Optus on Facebook or a DM on Twitter  with the details for further assistance mentioning everything you have tried, it sounds like a fault ticket may need to be logged.

[MillieBurrell]

I’m having this same issue now also with series 5 and iPhoneX

[ShibaNita]

Hi MillieBurrell.
I went and got a new SIM card for my phone. It worked! I had a very old SIM card and I guess it couldn’t support Apple Watch 5. Give it a go if all else fails. Good luck.