Activating a SIM card after taking Telus on their BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) offer is easy. If you order it in the store, the carrier will ship a pre-activated SIM card. Thus, all you must do is insert it into your phone. In case you didn’t know, Telus is a Canadian mobile network service provider based in Vancouver. You may know it as the parent of a carrier brand named Koodo, whose SIM card activation process we discussed. Also, you might have noticed their fight for market dominance against Bell and Rogers Wireless. Thankfully, you already made your choice, so here’s how to activate your Telus SIM card.
1. Prepare necessary information before you start
Unlike carriers that are lax on regulations, Telus isn’t, at least not for postpaid SIM card users. Users of their prepaid SIM cards have a greater degree of privacy and freedom, as you’ll see shortly. However, before you dive into the Telus SIM card activation procedure, you must have these things handy:
- Your phone’s IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) — If this SIM is for a feature phone, open the back, remove the battery, and check the label for a 15-digit number. Smartphones are best off calling *#06#. Both types of phones usually have IMEI printed on paper in the box they came in.
- An unlocked device — Your phone must not be locked to a specific network, in Canada or otherwise. If it is, check our tips on unlocking a SIM card.
- A serial number of your SIM card — A number consisting of 19 digits located under the barcode on the back of the full-size SIM card you received from Telus.
- Two forms of ID valid in Canada (postpaid only) — Telus supports driver’s license, passport, social insurance number, or credit card from a Canadian bank.
- Supported form of payment (prepaid only) — The carrier supports any Canadian credit card, Interac Online, Visa Debit, and a prepaid voucher on their website.
- A secondary active device (existing users only) — You must enter a verification code received as SSMS to prove your identity.
2. Activate Telus SIM card
Now that you’ve got things ready, it is a matter of formality, albeit one that can take quite a while to follow through. Follow these instructions to activate a Telus SIM card, depending on the type:
Prepaid SIM card
The only online method on the list belongs to prepaid SIM cards. More specifically, the activation of a prepaid SIM from Telus starts by going to the Telus Prepaid Activations page. There are 6 steps to separating you from calling, texting, and using mobile data::
- Plans — Select either “I purchased a Telus prepaid device“ or I brought my own device”. If you choose the former, you’ll be asked for the IMEI, as we explained above.
- Account — Create a new Telus user account. This will come in handy in a variety of ways, from having a portal to check the balance in a Telus SIM to accessing the My Telus app we’ll mention in a second.
- Phone — Fill out or select fields based on the type or size of the SIM card you’re using such as physical SIM or embedded SIM.
- Pay — Fund your first top-up to the SIM card through the payment methods we noted above.
- Submit — A quick recap of everything you selected so far. If everything looks good, move on.
- Confirm — Finish setting up your account and confirm all the information you entered. With that done, the SIM card you got from Telus should activate shortly.
Postpaid SIM card
For security reasons, users of postpaid SIM cards cannot finish the activation online. Instead, this Canadian mobile network provider requires them to reach out directly. The same is possible if any issues arise with the rest of the methods. Contact Telus in one of these ways:
- Voice machine — Dial #123 from a prepaid Telus SIM (if you have one) or 1-877-277-7745 from any other phone to reach Telus IVR (Interactive voice response) service.
- Calling Technical Support — Phone number available 24/7 by dialing *611 from a Telus phone or 1-866-558-2273 from any other mobile device.
- Telus Assist — Converse with their web chatbot 24/7 on their website or by downloading their application, My Telus, for Android or iOS.
- Visit a store — They have a worldwide Store Finder feature at “https://stores.telus.com/”.
- Ask on forums — Although this won’t help you directly, people on the Telus Neighborhood forum (https://forum.telus.com/) surely have plenty of guidelines.
Existing Telus user
Decided to stop using the old SIM card phone number and activate a new SIM card from Telus? No problem; follow these steps to edit your account and enable the new SIM:
- Head over to the official website and click on Log in the top right corner.
- Tip. You can also go to the My Account page (https://www.telus.com/my-account) directly.
- Sign in or sign up if you haven’t yet.
- Switch over to Plans & devices.
- Select which subscriber (if multiple are linked to the account) the SIM card swap should apply to.
- Go to the tab named Device, then click on Change a SIM card.
- Follow the on-screen instructions. You’ll be asked to enter a serial number, among other things.
Important. This method won’t work if you lost, damaged, or destroyed a SIM card and are trying to activate a replacement. If that’s the case, you must follow any instructions in the “postpaid SIM card” section.
Embedded SIM card
We thought we’d throw this in because of how many users decide to use physical and embedded SIMs simultaneously. Others decide to switch to eSIMs exclusively. Thankfully, Telus supports both use cases. Moreover, the carrier made things dead-simple, since the method is identical to the one for switching SIM cards above.
Keep this in mind, though. You must activate your ‘main’ SIM card using the techniques above first, even if you don’t plan to use it. Furthermore, using Telus vouchers is the fastest and most convenient way. With that said, under step 7 above, you must take a picture of your Telus voucher. After it loads, you’ll see a “New SIM” push notification on Android or an “A cellular plan from TELUS is ready to be added to the iPhone” message on iOS. Set up the line and you’re done.