While in a AT&T Wireless store just a few hours ago, I was told from a sales person that the iPhone activation system was going to be down this entire weekend starting tomorrow. This person went on to mention that I should either buy the iPhone today to get it activated, or purchase it on Monday so that I would be able to activate it then and not have to wait over the weekend.
When asked why AT&T or Apple would be shutting down the activation servers over this weekend, I was not told the direct reason but they mentioned that it may be upgrading the servers to keep up with demand. Without activation the iPhone is nearly useless. The only feature that works is emergency calling.
The shutdown for this weekend may just be a West Coast problem or a Sacramento, California area problem. Either way, I will still be waiting for Apple to come out with the 3G iPhone.