How to activate an old iphone (after restoring it) without a new data plan

Question

First off thanks for any help – I've seen the support article Using an iPhone without a wireless service plan and it no longer seems to reflect the current setup for the iTunes Store.
I have an old original iPhone that I've been using as an iPod. Works fine, but for some reason I wasn't able to replace some old photos with additional music. So, I decided to restore the phone and wipe it clean so there would be more space for music.
After the phone was wiped clean, it needed to be reactivated. There's no way to get into the phone or load music onto it without activating it, as far as I can tell. I saw the support article above, but after going through the steps in the iTunes store there was no way to active the phone without purchasing a $20 a month data plan. I know there's another way (or there used to be) but I can't figure it out.
Basically, just need to active my old iPhone, so that I can continue to use it as an iPod touch, without purchasing a new data plan.
Any help would be appriciated, thanks!
-joe

Answer 1

More info – the phone was used (by me) with a data plan for about two years.
The SIM card that's in the phone is the same as when I first purchased it.
I can easily activate it – just not without purcahsing a data plan.