yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
Who's blocked... who's not.

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at who's included and who's left off the blacklist in Samsung's European region-locked phones.

Belarus and Russia -- along with the rest of the ex-USSR -- are blocked but the Baltic states are not.

China is blocked but Taiwan is not.

Malaysia is blocked but Brunei is not.

Indonesia is blocked but East Timor is not.

India is blocked but Pakistan is not.

Nepal is blocked but Bhutan is not.

The rest of Asia is blocked... except for the Koreas and Japan.

Australia is blocked, but not Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the rest of Oceania and the Pacific Islands.

Afghanistan is blocked -- all but the Afghan Wireless Communications Company of billionaire Ehsan Bayat.

Iraq is blocked but not Kuwait.

Jordan and Israel are blocked but not Syria and Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. are blocked, but Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Yemen are not.

The northern tier of North Africa is blocked, except for Tunisia.

Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya are blocked but not Togo, Benin and Cameroon... nor the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar.

Trinidad & Tabago is blocked but not Curacao and Grenada.

Jamaica and the Dominican Republic are blocked, but the rest of the Caribbean is not.

Guatemala is blocked but not Belize.

Venezuela and Brazil are blocked but not Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

The rest of Central and South America are blocked but North America is not.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Ahmads001:
thanks guys!

Somehow, i broke into the high-wired enclave of samsung west-africa hq, where met an official who was all but asked me in shock how i was able to locate the place ?!

But then, he was way more than helpful, as the entire process took less than twelve hours - i woke up this morning to see an e-mail from samsung with unlock code and instructions on how to entre it!

It worked like dream!

Once again thanks to you all that showed a lot of concern. Your support was wonderful during the trying times. I guess lesson learnt
[Galaxy Note 3 General] dxzh:
Well done to you for your persistence. Well done to Samsung W Africa for doing right by you. Would you be able to cut and paste the email which you received (with personal details blanked out) as would be interesting to see instructions?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Ahmads001:
Will do, presently...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] DeviantSun:
My phone is UNLOCKED right now. First some info and then the procedure we followed;

1. Two Note 3 (N9005) bought in Saturn store in Germany, Munich.

2. They were used in Germany using a prepaid SIM.

3. Returned to Turkey, tried Turkey SIM, two phones requested SIM unlock key.

4. Mailed Samsung Germany with the following info:

- Time of purchase

- Location of purchase

- IMEIs

- Turkey GSM Network Name (Not required)

- E-mail address to send code (Very important, they cannot see your e-mail unless you type it)

and told them that we used the phones in Germany but region unlock didn't unlock our phones and we need help.

They replied the next day and told us that they will be glad to help and will provide codes. After the weekend and Monday, today they send a mail with the first code. They told us that they will provide the second code as soon as possible. And I entered the code on my device and it unlocked without any problems!

So, if you know the region of your device, try to contact the support directly. Not representatives, services etc. Just mail them using the form on Samsung webpage. For your information, Turkey Samsung Service Center technicians even didn't know what to do to unlock the devices and they asked for receipts, registry, etc. Samsung Germany mail support handled the problem in 3-4 work days.

I hope this helps the problems of other people.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] SupremeXXL:
Can you please share mail adress of Samsung Germany ?

(bende aynı durumdayım Almanyadan aldım ve kullandığın yolu denemek istiyorum Saygılar )
[Galaxy Note 3 General] bubblesmoney:
would a sim device like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mass-Global...8&qid=1383433501&sr=1-95&keywords=sim+adapter or something designed like this to mimic local sim work to unlock the note 3 for all users.

hoping something like this can be used by the devs here to unlock every ones phones in the future.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
+1, Ahmads006... and to you as well DeviantSun. It's good you didn't lose your investments!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] DeviantSun:
There is no support email address, you are FORCED to use the form on the web page. Use Google Translate if you don't know German, that's what I did.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] jian:
Use the activation sim for a few days and the phone should unlock.

I think all you need to do to unlock your handset is to use it for a few days with a sim card from the same region as the phone.

That's what I did with my European Note 3, and on inserting my HK sim card, the phone was unlocked.

I have checked the blacklist (the one that contains 63 countries) and HK is indeed listed.

I think the mistake people are making is that they are removing the activation sim too quickly. But this is because Samsung has not been absolutely clear about the correct procedure for activation.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
different answers...

Thanks, jian... your speculation is welcome, especially since that's all one can do until finding a solution that works. It's great that you could wait without consequence and that your phone is now working well!

The procedure you followed may have been exactly what was needed for your particular phone. It should be pointed out that others have tried exactly that -- some because they didn't have access to an out-of-region sim until they traveled -- and it hasn't worked for them.

Some Note 3 owners tried an out-of-region sim on day one and then days later experienced a spontaneous unlocking... at least for them there appeared to be no penalty for the experiment. Still others have been able to use out-of-region sims in their phones immediately after using an in-region sim for activation.

If you assume that identically labeled phones are identical unless otherwise mentioned -- a reasonable assumption -- it follows that you'd see your own experience as universal. We may not be able to make that assumption here. There seem to be confounding differences between units and/or circumstances that are affecting the activation & registration process.

What is clear is that Samsung did nothing -- perhaps to protect the secrecy of their surprise introduction of region-locking -- to prepare their customer-facing staff for the questions they've had to face. Most of them have been honest enough to say they don't really know, while others have passed along rumor or put forward their own speculations, with pretense of authority.

Of the many questions about this issue that remain, it looks like the one about why some phones won't unlock may have more than one answer.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] saintsimon:
His experience might be "universal" regarding his software update status. Some regions codes or providers are ahead of others regarding OTA updates.

Anyway, Samsung really blew it with the paternalistic and counterproductive secrecy around the region lock issue.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
missteps & felonies

Do you think, saintsimon, Samsung saw Microsoft as weak following the storm about the after-sale controls it tried adding to the Xbox One... and decided to take a different course? They must have anticipated some pushback to region locking. I'm guessing they're still waiting for this initial period of reaction to die down. Yeah, 'paternalistic' is a perfect word for the stance they took before the Note 3's release... and for their silence since.

I don't know what rock I was under a few years ago when all this happened, but I was reading just today about the crimes Samsung Electronics' CEO was convicted of. Now he's back at the helm of the company and the family's chaebol as if nothing ever happened. For those of us who were shocked by Samsung's current disregard for consumer rights, a little reading about what they've gotten away with in Korean politics could be enlightening. Now, it appears, they want to see if they can play their hand internationally and get away with it. That remains an open question.

Regarding the OTA firmware update -- and here I'm thinking you're referring to the MJ3 build -- its effect on releasing the region lock is in doubt. Despite 3 or 4 reports -- 1 at Android Central, 2 here, and 1 on amazon.de (possibly a repeat of one here) -- that their phone's unlocking coincided with the update, others have updated to MJ3 without effect.

We don't know whether or not the new build was a factor in any spontaneous unlocking, but we do know that it was not enough for some phones... and that the 63-MCC blacklist remains in the customer.xml of phones running MJ3.

jian, did you perform the experiment that's been discussed here: a) making sure your Hong Kong sim didn't work, b) installing MJ3 and c) immediately trying the HK sim again? (Just checking... you probably would have mentioned it if you had.)

We should remember that 5 days after MJ3 started rolling out, Samsung Germany said that they didn't know what the problem was or how to fix it.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] naskar7:
Hi all,

I think i've found the official solution to this nagging issue. It's been nothing short of a disaster. Fingers crossed
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
the 63 blacklisted countries

I thought I'd put this listing together to make it easier for someone to see if a particular country is blocked... and for anyone to get a better idea of the big picture.

Here it is as a .xls file if that's helpful.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] avenging:
great news i certainly will follow this if for some reason samsung bahrain wont unlock 4G note 3 bought from saudi. cheers
[Galaxy Note 3 General] jian:
No.

I didn't fancy the task of tracking down a Samsung service point in the event the HK sim locked my phone. I simply inserted the activation sim as soon as I received the handset and then used it for a couple of days. Sure, my phone could have been unlocked already but I doubt it especially as the box contained the region lock stickers.

Anyway, I'm just passing on my experience.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Weird Jo:
I published a list as part of my review on amazon.de. Your list is correct but for one country: Albania (276) is NOT blocked, but Turkey (286) is blocked.

Which is why DeviantSun had the problem with his two phones bought in Germany.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
Thanks, for spotting that, Weird Jo... I should have caught that, considering Deviant Sun's experience.

(The image and the attached spreadsheet in my post are both corrected.)
[Galaxy Note 3 General] dmitrik:
Who check this ? :good:

[YOUTUBE]7w2PioBJ5bU[/YOUTUBE]
[Galaxy Note 3 General] shelay:
Mate, i can just about feel your pain. But have you tried the RegionAway app by Chainfire from the playstore? I was in your shoes as well. But my only problem then was the SIM lock. I rooted my phone, not because i wanted to, but for ChainFire to work, you have to. This might help. Let me know how you get on with this. Once you run the app successfully, you might have to restart the handset a few time before it picks up signal.but it will. My SGN3 model is the N9005 LTE. Best of luck and let me know how you get along.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] wetsleet:
Ok, I have tried, but I have to admit to failure. Here is my last attempt to politely elicicit a useful reply from Samsung. On the Samsung UK website Q&A pages:

"Activated" - how long does it take?

Martin

UK

1 week ago

For how long must a Note 3 be used on a home-region SIM before the region lock is disabled? Once the region lock has been disabled will it stay disabled forever in all circumstances?

Was this helpful?YesNo

report

Answers

Samsung E-Support

1 day ago

Hi Martin,

Once a device is activated normally, the regional SIM lock is automatically released. Users can enjoy the roaming service as usual and can use other region's SIM card when travelling.

Thanks.

Was this helpful?YesNo

report
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
They apparently have approved language that they can't step outside of.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Limeybastard:
Same old response. Oh dear. Monday I'll be in the UK with my N900T. We shall see. Will post pics if it works.

Sent from my SM-N900T
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Mustajab Is'haq:
Hey Guys. I thought I'd ask a question here since a lot of you know about this RegionLock thing, more than me.

I can buy the Note 3 in the Middle Eastern countries. But I think the Note sold in Saudi Arabia is Locked. Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar seem to have no RegionLock.

My question is that has anybody here had any success in using their phone outside of the Middle East? I want to use it in India so any response would be really appreciated.

Not by Rooting, but by activating the phone using a Middle Eastern SIM first. Has anyone succeeded ?

Thanks a lot guys. :thumbup:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
Good luck, too, you Limey bastard!

Good luck to you, Limeybastard! :fingers-crossed:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] pnrb:
There are a lot of shops selling unlocked Note 3 in saudi. When buying, just look for one without the region sticker on it.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] avenging:
Jarir bookstore said if u activate in Saudi u will be able to use it anywhere. By I got the unlocked 4g
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Mustajab Is'haq:
Thanks a lot guys. I'll do as directed by both of you :)
[Galaxy Note 3 General] stevenmiddie:
Salam,

I bought my Note 3 in Qatar which is where I work. There was no 'region locked' sticker on the box.

I initially used my Qatar Ooredoo SIM card any way but have since used my Thai DTAC SIM card successfully in Bangkok which is where I actually live.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Mustajab Is'haq:
Walaikum assalam. Thanks a lot sir. Some of my relatives live in Qatar so I'll see if they can buy me one. Thanks again for your help.

This is really a great community!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Limeybastard:
In London now using giff gaff Sim on my N900T. It works as predicted. Not rooted just sp unlocked.

Sent from my SM-N900T
[Galaxy Note 3 General] ChrisArden:
It sounds as if Samsung may have finally got their act together with the recent updates and their initial activation with an authorized local SIM is now unlocking the regional lock for all SIMs as we guess they originally intended.

Is there anyone who has received the updates and still has a problem with out of region SIMs?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
we're not there yet...

I agree with some of what you just said, ChrisArden, as you've mentioned before...

I bet you're right about Samsung's intentions for how we're supposed to unlock these things... and that they royally bungled their implementation. I know you're right about the current difficulty sorting out the truth. And I believe from your earlier posts you agree that they've failed dismally at communicating with re-sellers, national division management and customer service and sales staff, just as much as with consumers. Major fail.

I'm not sure it's safe to say, though, that they've gotten their act together until they a) start talking, honestly and clearly, about what's been going on and b) abandon their entire region-lock agenda as misconceived from the start. I'm not suggesting that I think for a second they'll ever do the former... or ever concede to the latter voluntarily.

It'd be interesting if you called the flagship Samsung shop you visited in Paris and see if any of the previously uninformed employees there can now explain what's going on, don't you think?

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

But larger issues aside, I'm curious about what makes you conclude that the problems with unlocking have been resolved or that any phones that have finally unlocked have done so due to FW downloads. Maybe you're basing that on something you've learned that hasn't been shared out here yet.

As far as OTA updates go, we don't really have any evidence that this relates to the region lock problem.

It's true that 3 or 4 people reported that their phones unlocked about the time they updated with the MJ3 build -- and that one of these people got so excited that their phone finally worked as it should, they forgot to act like a real journalist, someone who would have investigated (at least a little!) before reporting their single-case anecdote as if it were the news.

None of these people have come forward and said that they did indeed check right before and right after updating to see if their phone was region unlocked. Nor have they said they've bothered to take a peek at their phone's system/csc/customer.xml file to see if it's changed. Other posters, who both before & after updating to MJ3 looked at this file where the region-lock code resides, have said it remains unchanged.

And, yes, several people have reported that their phones remained locked after updating to the MJ3 build of Android.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

It's worth noting that, while we can all be happy that his Note 3 fired up without a region lock, LimeyBastard's in the States. His N900t is designed for T-Mobile and surely came with a carrier lock. It's the ''unlocked'' US phones -- with no carrier lock -- that are infested with the region lock. As far as we know, phones locked for service providers never had a region lock in the first place, which makes sense, as dxzh pointed out, since the same NetworkLock lines of code appear to be used for either one type of lock or the other, never both.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Limeybastard:
Yep. Agreed. I don't think my USA spec phone was region locked. Also, phone has never been updated since purchase. Just had SP lock removed when so that I could use my ATT Sim card in my home country. Got charged approx $20 per meg data when my phone was turned on when I landed. Approx 4,meg used thus 80 bucks. Grrrr.

Sent from my SM-N900T
[Galaxy Note 3 General] speculatrix:
Samsung, if you happen to read this, you lost a good customer (owner of two Galaxy Wifi 5" units, one Note 2, and one Galaxy Note 8). No more Samsung devices in my house.

I decided against upgrading to a Note 3 from a Note 2 - I had only bee waiting for Note 3 price to fall after early adopter's premium is reduced.

I defected to a Sony Xperia Z Ultra. I'm not sure if Sony are any better than Samsung. I discovered too late that the DRM used to protect Sony's proprietary media content are lost if you unlock the bootloader, and that breaks the camera and some of the proprietary "Bravia" stuff too. Anyway, that's another story for another thread.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Mustajab Is'haq:
Finally it looks like they have cleared this up.

gsmarena.com/samsung_on_region_lock_you_need_5_min_of_voice_calls-news-7184.php

Sent from a Galaxy far far away....
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
5 minutes of voice

Apparently Samsung Germany asked amazon.de to publish a statement, which it did on the 11th. (I'm relying on a very limited machine translation of the German.)

In this statement, Samsung Germany states:

1. The reason for the region lock was "to provide customers in their respective regions an optimal mobile experience and customer service adapted to the different needs in different regions."

2. They didn't say, 'OK, what we told you before, about removing the region lock? Well that didn't always work.' They do say there's a ''new solution already available'' to owners of the Note 3 and that it will be [sic] released to owners of ''the Samsung Galaxy S4, S4 mini, S III and Mark II in the coming weeks.''

3. The region lock is now supposed to deactivate with 5 minutes of voice calls using any European sim as long as the device is being used ''in the German mobile network.''

4. ''If a device from the European region is used with a SIM card from a provider who is not from the Europe and the device does not accept the SIM card, the user can unlock his device from a Samsung Customer Service.'' I think Samsung Germany is saying, 'call if this doesn't work.'

5. They ended their statement saying, ''If a customer has questions regarding the 'regional lock' function of their product, they can contact customer service.''

GSM Arena, who reported this statement, warns owners of target Galaxy devices that the imminent -- and in fact already happening -- 4.3 updates not only will contain the ''new solution,'' it will be the mechanism for introducing the region lock to their phones.

I've been following the xda discussion of the MJ6 & MJ7 builds and so far it's been limited to Knox, data connection, battery drain and sound quality, with no reference to region locking. I don't know, ChrisArden, if you were referring to these builds, but in that context your question is a really good one:

Also, does anyone have any recent experience trying to get help with this from Samsung customer service, especially in Germany?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
locked

I thought I'd share the image GSM Arena used in their article.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
it came to pass that Caesar issued a decree... and all returned to their own cities

If there is a new solution -- and let's assume for now there is -- there's been a significant behind-the-scenes discussion at Samsung as they've scrambled to clarify for themselves the answers to some of the functional questions we've been asking here. For example, can you register your phone by using it anywhere in the world? Does it have to be in the home region when it's used? The home country? How much use is required?

On 24-Oct dxzh wrote this after Samsung Germany's 17-Oct statement:

Samsung is trying to address the registration question now, not so much as a description of the 1st region lock that's been in place so far -- Region Lock 1 -- but instead as a design objective for their 2nd go at how to code the lock. I think it makes sense to look at the new FW update not as 'a new solution' to the old lock but as 'the new region lock,' or Region Lock 2.

Official requirements for the use test

Region Lock 1: we may never find out, without compelled testimony

Region Lock 2: 'in the home country' and '5 minutes'

We're probably entering an interlude of confusion, with some people continuing to report their experience based on the old lock, some based on the new. Both will be interesting & valuable. My guess is that soon we'll leave behind as temporarily unanswerable our abundant questions about how the first region lock worked, in favor of trying to understand the second. Meanwhile, it's even more helpful now if posters include what build they're on when they report their findings here.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
foreign sim worked in region but not abroad...

This was posted on 30-Oct on a S4 forum. Though I don't know the poster's build status, his experience may cast doubt on something we've been assuming here: phones which have been reported to work with out-of-region sims while the phone was still in the home region may not have been ready to work properly when actually used out of region.

Did anyone else have a similar experience?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Killberty:
I got my german tmobile carrier n9005 without a sticker, do i have region lock?

leave a 'thanks' if i helped

SM-N9005 URDLV 0x0

XDA Developers 4 premium app