Unless you get it to read a sim card i believ you wont be able to access the actual phone.

What do you mean the phone is not "activated?".... As in it has not been set up from a restore? If you're on the activation screen, it should let you proceed by choosing a wireless network when going through the activation process... Having a SIM card or not should not prevent you from using the phone as a wifi only device/iPod. As for things that require cellular data such as phone calls, you will not be able to make or receive those since the SIM card slot will not read SIM cards. If you have an Apple store near you, I would recommend taking it there and see if they can get it working... if it's something that they can do do set it up there, it shouldn't cost you anything but if they need to do a repair on the SIM card slot then it may cost you some money-- although I'm not sure how much something like that would be.