yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
It'll be interesting to see what happens. It's not going to kill me one way or another, it may just sway me towards getting the AT&T LTE version. They would not take me off iPhone data, even after talking to 3 different reps on 3 separate phone calls, without giving a model number. What I would recommend to anyone trying to make this work, is to grab a dumb phone and get that one changed to the non smartphone data, then swap your sim to the gs3. They gave me no issue after I gave them the IMEI of an old AT&T phone, and had I gone that route the first time I probably would not have had this issue arise.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
I agree. And there is no news that samsung (or any other manufacturer) and Att will work together to build a database of all the smart phones. I don't see it feasible.

Also the lost/stolen smartphone is a completely different issue that has nothing to do with unlimited data. The only way it at all it fits in the scrnario is if you need to change the imei number in case it is flagged. But be warned that changing may be illegal in your country. Afaik its not in USA. I'll have to double check on that.

Let's keep the thread on topic. I'm sure many got benifitted by the information provided and I like the fact that so many people pitched in to help others who were new to this unlimited data package.
[Galaxy S III General] kim319:
I'm not sure I understand your recommendation.

How would having had your sim in a dumb phone instead of the s3 when you first called at&t and asked for the downgrade to the medianet plan have helped?

It seems as if for some funky reason your specifc s3's IMEI was reporting to at&t as an iphone. After you had registered your dumbphone with at&t and the $10 plan, wouldn't you still have had the same original problem the moment you switched the sim into your s3?

---------- Post added at 04:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 PM ----------

I think the issue of whether ALL international S3's or just 99.9% of international S3's can get on the medianet plan without being flagged is very relevant.

I would be much more hesitant to shell out $700 for the international S3 if I knew there was a chance that sometimes at&t flags the phone as a smartphone and you have no recourse if your in that unlucky 0.1%.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
That's true, and if it's the case that my phone is reporting as an iPhone for some strange reason, then it would not have helped. Either way, I am not sure what's the cause of this issue. Right now I am back on Medianet Unlimited, and it'll be a tell tale sign in 24 hours if I get swapped to either a Smartphone Plan, or an iPhone plan.
[Galaxy S III General] kim319:
are you saying you will wait another 24 hrs before swapping the sim back into s3? or that you have already switched it over and now am waiting to see if the medianet plan will stick this time around?
[Galaxy S III General] chakra:
I think he is saying he has placed the sim back in his S3 and will wait 24 hrs to see if his plan gets changed.
[Galaxy S III General] geopatr:
Very interesting. I wonder if it would work with any of the Canadian carriers?:p
[Galaxy S III General] SlimJ87D:
Do not do it this way. This is wrong. Just do what everyone has done. Give them the IMEI number of the SGS3 and tell them that it is a dumbphone. Simple as that. Follow the steps in the OP.

Swapping your SIM card randomly will be detected on their system.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
I did exactly this twice. TWO times I called them, gave them the IMEI and within 24 hours I was swapped to an iPhone plan out of the blue. I think the IMEI of the phone must have been previously flagged or something. The third time I called, I activated an old AT&T dumb phone and it's stuck so far. It was not until the third call that i mentioned what type of device I had, because it was clear at that point that the above was not working for me. Hopefully I am just an isolated case.
[Galaxy S III General] SlimJ87D:
You either have a special case or you did something that you're not telling us. How does the rep know you are using a SGS3? Yes I definitely think you got your IMEI number flagged somehow. I don't know if the ATT rep just had a hunch or something, but they flagged you somehow someway.

Other than that, the method in the OP works perfectly for the majority of us. I recommend those steps to anyone else.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
I already swapped the sim back to the s3 and am waiting to see if anything happens. Even if they do swap me back at this point, I love this phone enough to keep it on the more expensive data plan, at least until the AT&T version development catches up (if it ever does)
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
I wish I could say it was something special. I got this text this morning after swapping yesterday, and did not mention a word to the rep about having a gs3. The unlimited was working perfectly and the data was fast before the change. It was not until tonight I mentioned it, after I had talked to several different reps, and they all insisted I had an iPhone on the account. I do not physically have an iPhone and my sim has not left the gs3 since I got it. And I agree, it's probably an isolated case, I'm glad no one else is having this issue.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
Realize too that I got this phone, a I am the third owner afaik. It's possible the original owner did something to get it flagged. I know the person I got it from did not have an iPhone and he did not get it flagged, but before him who knows.
[Galaxy S III General] SlimJ87D:
If you are the third owner than that explains it, this is the detail that you left out and did not tell us. Try modifying the ES folder and then log onto ATT and see if it shows the dumb phone. I highly suggest you try this approach as it seems like you got nothing else to lose. It would help other people here that might run into your problems.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
There you go. That may be the reason why the original owner sold it anyway?

I'll try to find out the step-by-step instructions for resetting the imei number to dumb phone. If anyone else who has done this before would like to contribute then please pm me and I'll add it to op with your name.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
Thanks guys, you're both a big help
[Galaxy S III General] neyenlives:
i find this thread fairly insulting and limited in scope at best.

1.There's no way I would try to save $17 and give up the convenience of being able to walk into any local store to have an issue handled immediately on the spot, replacing the handset with a new one if necessary.

2.There's no way I would give up 4GLTE data in order to save $20/mo on my bill. I realize this thread is primarily aimed at GSM users, thus it's limited scope, but I really don't find "settling for good enough data" to be a very progressive or even technologically responsible attitude to have. If the tech community took that attitude regularly we wouldn't have many things we have today.
[Galaxy S III General] Baldilocks:
1. If you think that most stores can handle most issues on the spot, you haven't been into one in a while.

2. LTE is a non issue. If I need fast internet access, I'll use a computer. For what most people do (browsing the web from time to time), HSPA+ is more than enough as it puts Verizon's/Sprints 3G to shame. I find that 3-11Mbp is quite sufficient for what I do with my phone. I'm not running a game server or downloading torrents on my phone.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Edited post:

The main benefit is unlimited data on hspa+ and community support.

Ps: Stop trolling please. If you find it insulting then please don't post here or bump it.

I would have respected your thoughts and appreciated your post if you had put it in more polite way.

Also your profile says verizon so this is not for you anyway. You do not have an option to buy international version. The only version that you can get is verizon locked s4 version.
[Galaxy S III General] NA 521":
How I can spend $17 more dollars and have unlimited data?
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Please refer to the first post in this thread to understand this.
[Galaxy S III General] neyenlives:
Way to use a hammer to drive a thumb-tack. Perhaps you were seeing red so you overlooked where I said

My sentiments were not carrier specific and they were very very reserved containing no derogatory language. I find it very insulting as a member of the current technologically advanced culture to find people who are selling themselves short to save a few dollars in the name of stifling progress.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an opposing opinion and stating it intelligently. I would suggest breathing for a moment and accepting the fact that what you propose, regardless of carrier, is not for everyone and that you cannot restrict the thread only to those who agree with your approach.

Good evening.
[Galaxy S III General] NA 521":
What I was trying to say was that it's not about saving $17. It is about unlimited data.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
You have every right to have opposing opinion. The purpose of putting the $17 calculation was to throw in some numbers and let people see that this $700 phone is not costly but actually cheaper than the carrier subsidized versions which sell for $200. And as far as personal opinion is considered, I believe that you will be selling yourself short if you get a verizon locked phone which is only dual core and lacks the basic capability of changing a sim card.

Do yiu really think someone who is spending $700 really cares about $17?
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Ah I see your point and I agree with you.
[Galaxy S III General] kim319:
lol. please everyone lets just ignore the troll. reading back his last post its quite obvious he is just baiting and hoping for more attention.

he's already gotten more attention than he deserves.

hopefully he will respond a couple more times to being called out as a troll, and when everyone ignores him he will leave.
[Galaxy S III General] neyenlives:
why the heck would I want to change the sim card? Verizon has the most expansive coverage here bar none. I have had phones through every major carrier over the last 15 years. I also traveled extensively for several of those years carrying two phones (one for work, one for personal) from different carriers at the same time. There is no question that they have the superior service all things considered. Fastest overall 4G data, most reliability, and yes I am very willing to pay a few dollars more for that convenience just like I don't mind paying a little more for the convenience of being able to resolve a device issue the same day......obviously I put quality over quantity.

Interestingly enough I have done some research into the "only dual core" claims and I am confident that it will perform at least as well if not better in anything you do that matters(synthetic benchmarks are meaningless) due in part to a superior, more efficient architecture of the S4 Krait core, lower power consumption, and the 2GB of ram is going to really sweeten the deal because that is one area where this "only dual core" platform will really shine. I feel it will really make good use of the memory bandwidth and I/O bandwidth, perhaps more so than the "oh so superior exynos quad".

Don't drink the "moar corez is bettar!" kool aid my friend. There are plenty of historical examples of more cores being either wasted on poorly written code, operating system, apps....or from a purely architectural aspect. It's not how many cores you have. It's how much you get done per clock tic per core and also how much the memory subsystem limits that performance.

Meanwhile those who are too blind to see other viewpoints hide behind the "he is a troll" garbage. I won't post in this thread anymore simply because I won't do it, but kim you are more than welcome to cyber-stalk me into another thread to logically debate things.
[Galaxy S III General] Baldilocks:
While your experience my favor Verizon, not everyone has the same experience. In my area, Verizon is lacking in many places. That, coupled with the fact that I can have several phones and swap them as frequently as I want to, makes AT&T and GSM the best choice.

Can we get back on topic??
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Resale value? International travels? Change of carriers? Freedom?

In your own words, don't drink the "moar ramz is bettar" kool aid bud. Free ram does nothing to boost speed. I've got 450 mb free ram which is sufficient! Additional 1gb will do nothing.

You are contradicting yourself. Stop talking about the technological advances if you can't appreciate the presence of quadcore processor in a smartphone. Many people buy gadgets based upon hardware, not just software. If i were to believe those rumors, Googles next operating system iteration is rumored to be jellybean 4.1 which will be released on a quadcore tablet. Most of us like to be futureproof and would want to believe that jelly bean will be quadcore optimized.

Your viewpoint is welcome, your presentation is not. We are here for helping eachother not stalking.
[Galaxy S III General] SlimJ87D:
I think you need to relax, take a chill pill and realize you came in here with the red in your eyes and the fighting words.

Lastly, if you did research you would have found out that the S4 witht eh Adreno sucks up about 400 mbs of ram with the 4G LTE radio and lack of dedicated video ram. That's why Samsung put 2gbs in there, because it would have ended up like the EVO 4G LTE and HOX 4G LTE where they are only left with almost 1/4th of the ram thanks to Sense, 4G LTE radio and Adreno. But yes, having an extra 500 mb of ram will probably allow you to open 2 or 3 more apps than the international version.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
Just stop feeding him guys. He has what works for him, we have what works for us. We made OUR thread to help US. There is a Verizon thread that I believe he will find more pertinent information for his needs.

Anyway, I still have my unlimited plan for now, I'll report back in the morning. Thanks for all the help in this thread guys, it's been a big help.
[Galaxy S III General] ekiels:
Ok. So the international GS3 would work on ST's (att's) network since it is not cdma- correct?

Thank you for helping me out!
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Correct.
[Galaxy S III General] Toad858:
^^^^ Agreed

Please report back, im eager to see how AT&T's system handles your situation.
[Galaxy S III General] raytraceme:
love how no one mentioned the benefit of the wolfson dac which won't come with the s4 version b/c the s4 has its own dac intergrated with it.
[Galaxy S III General] NA 521":
Baldilocks,

I see you're from Dover, DE. Do you ever get into Philadelphia or the western suburbs (Valley Forge, Norristown, etc). I'm just curious how your speeds are in those areas. Thanks!
[Galaxy S III General] Baldilocks:
I go to Philly and the surrounding areas and South Jersey. Speeds in 3G areas are great. In Philly it ranges from 1.5-6 down, depending on time of day, what area I am in or the population density.
[Galaxy S III General] NA 521":
So do you think that I should have good speeds where the AT&T coverage map shows 3G or better? The map shows southeastern PA and most of NJ as having 4G. Am I to assume that I will have good speeds in those areas? I'm curious if your experience agrees with the coverage map because I don't know how accurate it is!

In case you're wondering, this is the map I'm looking at:

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/#?type=data&lat=40.097665365155706&lon=-75.29064857841286&sci=4
[Galaxy S III General] Baldilocks:
It's been my experience that it's pretty accurate.
[Galaxy S III General] NA 521":
That's really valuable information. Thanks a lot!
[Galaxy S III General] achalasawa:
NEW GUY!

Hi everyone!

I am a student, I just came here (Champaign, Illinois) 2 days back. I have a samsung galaxy s3 which I bought in India.

It has

HSPA, HSDPA 21 Mbps/ HSUPA 5.76Mbps Quad Band (850/900/1900/2100)

EDGE/GPRS quad band 850/900/1800/1900).

Quad Core 1.4 Ghz

I visited AT&T store regarding a sim card the lady there told me that I will need a contract to go with this phone or else I will only be able to use voice and text.

T-mobile is ready to give me a plan. (I did not visit straight talk yet)

I am here for an year.

I need adequate local calling minutes, and sufficient data.

I have wifi access at Home and University and there is nothing else here in champaign.

I have read the procedure ceo.mtcl has described, but I think its only for phones which are on contract.

Can some1 please suggest a plan for me ? I love this phone and I would love to have unlimited data for 10$
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
Just as an update, 24 hours later and I am still on the non smartphone unlimited data plan. It shows as a dumb phone on their online system, maybe all is good now :)
[Galaxy S III General] Toad858:
For you i think the staright talk pre paid plan is pefect. 45$ unlimited talk and text with 2 gb of hspa+. You can order a microsim from there website and activate there also...
[Galaxy S III General] ravensfan8448:
Hello everyone. I have read through the thread and I am trying to understand if it is possible to use this trick when you do not already have a plan with atat. Can I purchase the micro sim mentioned already and put it in the international s3, then call 611 and set up the dumbphone plan? I apologize if I am totally backwards in my thinking, I am quite ignorant regarding this information.

I am also curious as to how to go about the contract option. The OP mentioned buying the sky rocket from amazon and selling it right away. I understand I would then be on a contract, so do I just buy a micro sim mentioned above and follow the steps then? I just mention that I already have a plan but lost my phone?
[Galaxy S III General] theROMinator:
I will be doing this soon! Did you follow the OPs steps? Or did you do something else?
[Galaxy S III General] SlimJ87D:
No he had a special case where he is the 3rd owner of the phone. The previous owner got his IMEI flagged.

If you are the first owner of the phone, then follow the steps and you will be fine.
[Galaxy S III General] theROMinator:
Wait, third owner of a GSIII, already?? LOL
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Haha yes. Hard to believe but that's what he said :) I'll take his word on it.

Sent from CM9 ed Galaxy S3 International
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Just installed cm9 and the apn settings were automatically detected again. Speed test resulted in the same speeds.

Sent from CM9 ed Galaxy S3 International
[Galaxy S III General] theROMinator:
Interesting... OMG CM9 ALREADY?!?! Whoop! Quick question, are you the primary account holder? I just switched my plan to 3GB the other day (secondary line on family plan) and was wondering if the 611 method would still work.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
I have two lines which are using this method. One is primary and one is secondary. This method is independent of what line it is. :) please let us know if this worked for you.

Sent from CM9 ed Galaxy S3 International
[Galaxy S III General] gametheorist:
Just a quick update guys- I am using S3 international on Straight Talk in San Francisco area- getting 1-3 megabits which is okay- slightly better than Verizon 3G which I had before on Droid X.

I'm fairly happy with it, except there is an issue with google voice-i wonder if anyone else is having it?

When I make outbound calls and have the option "always use google voice to make calls" I don't get any calls- it just doesn't go through. When I check "always ask before making a call", it goes through and I can select "use google voice to make this call", and it will go through. I never had an issue before with my other android phones, and it seems that others are also having this issue as well.. Just wondering if someone here might have seen this happening?

This is thread where others have reported this issue

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=27507895#post27507895
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
That's a software issue, hopefully you'll find a solution for it.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
I did update the second post in OP with this graph where you can see activity in all four cores of CPU.
[Galaxy S III General] Janax99:
Q about 1st microSIM acquisition

As a Captivate owner/user I'm almost ready to pull the trigger on this deal as highlighted here (International on $10/month unlimited), but have a question since I don't currently have a microSIM card or have a phone that uses one. The OP seems to assume that the user already has a microSIM to insert into the new S3 - not the case for me. I've also read that people have recommended just going into the AT&T store to get a microSIM from them instead of buying one somewhere else like Amazon, which sounds great as well. However, my question is about phone/SIM activation using the S3 itself...

If I were to go into the AT&T store and get a microSIM card from them, won't they recognize the fact that it's a smartphone and put it in their system as such? That is, once they activate the microSIM in the phone once I take it in to get a SIM card, won't they have the IMEI number for the international phone at that point already and thus I won't be able to call 611 and tell them I've "switched" to a dumbphone?

Please help me a bit with the logic on this one - this has been a great thread and thanks to all who have contributed with the information so far!
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
No they will not recognize it. Just ask for a micro sim card and don't show them the phone.

I know this is a long thread now but this question has already been answered here.
[Galaxy S III General] SlimJ87D:
No, you just ask for the card, don't show them the phone and tell them you need it because your "international dumbphone" uses micro sims.

Also, SIM cutters are about $1 on ebay. You can just cut the one you are using now.
[Galaxy S III General] Baldilocks:
Just be careful with the SIM cutters. They don't always work. They have to be newer SIMs with a smaller contact patch.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
This is the one I got from eBay. See the name of the seller and get one from him from eBay in case you are planning to buy one.
[Galaxy S III General] daveop:
Well it's been a few days now. After some weirdness with AT&T, it seems like things calmed down for me and I am still on unlimited. It seems the IMEI was not flagged, and maybe it was just some random bad luck.

I would highly recommend the Unlimited Data that comes with the international model, the speed is awesome and not having to worry about streaming google music and youtube is awesome.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Glad it worked for you.
[Galaxy S III General] Husam2011:
I wonder if its possible to get a 3g Tablet plan simcard and use sipdriod and google voice as minutes, and messaging alternatives. I'll try that out on my S2 before i get the S3, and ill have a bill of only $30 a month! hope it works..

-- also this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-Samsung-...0682663806?pt=Cell_Phones&hash=item460215577e

I wonder if i can buy only 1 of it and if the warranty is really 2 years international.
[Galaxy S III General] ceo.mtcl:
Sure. Let us know.

Also that eBay item is no longer there.
[Galaxy S III General] brekec88:
To me the benefit isn't as much saving money as it is unlimited data.