There is disclosed a system and method for over the air (OTA) activation of a previously activated mobile station in a wireless telecommunications network. During the new activation, an over the air processor requests the data configuration of the mobile station. The mobile station may issue a first challenge to the over the air processor and in so doing transmits a challenge message including certain mobile station parameters to the over the air processor. The over the air processor then communicates this information to the network authentication center which produces a challenge return message from the certain mobile station parameters and sends the challenge return message to the mobile station. The mobile station validates the challenge return message and if validation is successful the mobile station completes the transfer of mobile station data configuration to the over the air processor. The authentication center uses one of the Shared Secret Data Challenge (SSD_C) and Shared Secret Data Subsidy (SSD_S) security locks not broadcast over the air in the generation of the challenge return message. The authentication center stores the SSD_C and SSD_S for this purpose and is advised by the mobile station on which one of these two parameters is to be used by a Shared Secret Data Select parameter indicator (SSD_Select) forwarded by the mobile station as one of the parameters transmitted in the challenge request. The over the air processor then forwards new operating parameters to the mobile station and requests the mobile station to commit to these parameters. The mobile station may then issue a second challenge to the over the air processor request to commit where the second challenge is handled by the network in a manner similar to the first challenge.