Deactivation, Release and Reactivation of sim

Troubleshooting
1

I have 2 electrons that I didn’t use for about 6 months and they show up as deactivated in the console. There is no button for reactivation.
After many hours searching and experimenting I finally decided to set the sims up again through http://setup.particle.io . That eventually worked but 2 questions:

  1. Are sims automatically deactivated if not used for a period of time?
  2. Is Deactivation, Reactivation, Release and sim setup and how they relate to each other explained in a straightforward way somewhere in the documentation? For example, “SIM Management” in the tutorials seems to relate to sim management for “Products” and doesn’t cover all the options seen in the console.
2

Hi @colemanjj -

1: no.
2: SIM Management can definitely appear a little abstruse, so let me make it relatively clear:

a) When you hit “Deactivate” on a given SIM, it does two things - it pings the API of the MVNO in charge of managing that SIM telling them to deactivate the SIM. When the MVNO gets back to us that the process is complete, our Billing infrastructure turns off the subscription for that given SIM so you are not charged for it. Our cellular billing model charges for active SIMs, not active devices, as SIMs are transferrable among devices. SIMs are not deactivated automatically unless there is an issue with payment OR the data limit on that device has been reached. A “Deactivated” SIM is basically “paused.”

b) When you hit “Release” on a given SIM, it does all of the above AND it also makes that SIM available for another user to claim to their account. A “Released” SIM is basically “cancelled.”

c) “Reactivation” should be straightforward except for three cases: 1) there is an issue with billing on a given account, 2) the SIM has sufficiently exceeded its data limit such that it cannot be reactivated without altering that limit, 3) there is some miscommunication between the Particle API and the MVNO. If you’re not seeing a reactivation button, please open a support ticket referencing post 53675, providing your Account ID and the ICCID of the SIM in question (visible on the Console), and telling them @marekparticle sent you!

3

thanks. your explanations are helpful.

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