Carphone: “All iPhone users connected”

As the iPhone 3G passed the mark of one million handsets sold globally this week, customers were still being plagued by problems registering their handsets.

Many customers found their handsets were still not receiving any signal four days after they purchased the devices, with many pointing the finger at Apple’s system.

The launch of the new iPhone has been dogged by stock shortages and a computer crash on the launch day that saw many customers details have to be taken down manually.

An O2 spokeswoman said that these new problems "were not directly related" to the previous crash and that the majority of phones affected were bought through The Carphone Warehouse.

A spokesman for Carphone said: "On what was the busiest day in the company’s history, 97 per cent of our customers were connected successfully. We’re disappointed this wasn’t 100 per cent but we subsequently resolved the issue and all iPhone customers have now been connected."

The problems, which have been reported globally, are thought to be a result of the systems being overloaded as so many customers attempted to register as once.

Apple passed the sales benchmark on Sunday after the handset’s release in 21 countries last Friday.