yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] AcostaJA:
Anyone here tried to use an NON USA / NON AMERICAS Sim on an USA T-Mobile Note 3?

Now the best International Unlocked phone is the iPhone 5C/5S besides has 7 LTE bands, 5 HDSPA bands, AND ITS TOTALLY UNLOCKED, Thanks for that SHAME SAMSUNG...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] letama:
Wow! Retroactively? That would piss off many people. This is insane, I can't believe they'd do something like that... Are they looking for massive lawsuit ?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Onweel2:
Fight gray Market ?

If they really want to fight with gray market. Why it is not other way around. Because now Asia phone is not lock. and the price for the phone is cheap if convert to be Euro. Example Thai galaxy Note 3 is 575 Euro. But in Nederland is 699 Euro. If i just order from Thailand or let someone there send it to me it still cheaper.

But i not do that becasue i do not want N9000 model i want Sanp dragon ship.

So This all lead me to think about. They just want to sell them ship CPU. and they do not want people from Asia order the phone from Eu or USA for use Snapdragon. Because the most of Asia country sell Samsung CPU.

And no point to fight with this if some Russian still can unlock your phone.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] carlitos66:
As I understand this ( after reading for 2 hours):

- you buy your phone unlocked, carrier free from Amazon.de

- you put in the phone working valid German sim card

- phone unlocks ok, you can use it in Germany

- you travel to France and put in France sim card, phone still works ok because it is part of European union - its regionally unlocked.

- you then fly to USA, put in AT&T sim card and phone locks - USA is not part of the European Union or as Samsung nicely made new term "European Economic Area" so the can include Norway and Switzerland, because if they didn't, they would lost a lot of sales over there.

So You know what Samsung? F you. I own Note 1 and Note 2, my wife parents live in Germany and I always bought unlocked phone from Amazon.de and I was going to buy Note 3 and pick it up on Thanksgiving week when we fly to Germany, I pre ordered new Samsung 10.1 tab via Best Buy, but guess what. I am cancelling my Tab order and not buying your Note 3. Just here you lost approx. $1,200.00 plus of my money.

If one thousand of people do the same thing, over one milion in revenue lost. If more people do that, maybe they will notice something wrong.

And doing it on older Note2 and Galaxy S4 with future updates? You will go out of business - phone business.

I am buying LG from now on, unless you change the policy.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] PierreTech:
Have anyone here sucessfuly unlock europe/us note 3 and use asia sim on it?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] redpill2016:
It's clear this is a Samsung corporate decision, and they do not want to be the enemy of international users of their top end smartphones. They will work this out, it is a strike at gray market importers, not consumers. They have screwed this up but they have every motivation to make it right with the consumer.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] hpacura:
The best of the best would be Sony Z1 :)
[Galaxy Note 3 General] non1oson:
screen is too small..
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Darkjamzi:
This is a joke.........right?? :eek:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] lucfeenstra:
Puman, thank you for the IMEI unlock, working as promised!

Now it's time to enjoy using this phone :)
[Galaxy Note 3 General] hpacura:
Yes but much much better than iPhone

---------- Post added at 07:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:08 PM ----------

Samsung is making too much money and she lost her mind now. She takes years to earn this reputation but only takes a couple of days to destroy it. Samsung is digging her own grave if she's not back down.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] dxzh:
Kitkat

They may be in part looking to adopt a consistent corporate policy across their key phones' software so less different versions etc.

I doubt they are looking for any lawsuit, and they would probably easily avoid it anyway by something as simple as making it a condition to downloading the KitKat upgrade that the user accepted whatever region lock it is they are looking to implement. Nobody is forcing anybody to upgrade though clearly we would all usually wish to do so. There is likely to be the option of a custom ROM to work around it anyway once any region lock is better understood.

The inclusion of the region lock is likely only to become a real issue if the region lock turned out to control not just the succesful activation of the phone on a one-off basis, but also to control the subsequent use in the phones of SIMs issued by operators outside the home region. This would affect many more people than just a one-off activation lock. At the moment Samsung Global appears to be keeping quiet about what it really intends - I guess there may be some quite sensitive corporate policies/strategies in the background to balance before definitively revealing its intentions ... and/or a bureaucratic maze to negotiate to issue a cogent international press statement across the regions taking into account all the affected networks, customers, staff etc potentially involved or affected.

-

---------- Post added at 01:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 AM ----------

This simple lock-out of a SIM issued by a network from outside the home region is certainly one way to understand the effect of the region lock. The effect on consumers could be degrees more subtle than that in practice. Innumerable permutations of trade-offs could be used by the manufacturer to operate this in practice, if this particular 'region lock' genie is let out of its bottle.

For example, an ongoing commercial relationship in terms of mobile sales or product placement with a network might mean that a manufacturer of a phone would ensure a network otherwise to be locked out from that phone due to a blocked MCC would in fact be directly or indirectly put on an exceptions list to the region lock so that SIMs it issued would work despite the general block on its MCC. The excepted network could then pick up revenue not available to all other networks with that MCC from that phone customer. The phone holder might find that it was able to use SIMs of certain major networks outside its home region - not necessarily realising that it was perhaps being limited in its choice of network until it positively looked at using another (perhaps smaller) network in that country or a network in a small country.

I still really hope that Samsung Global will be able simply to confirm that the region lock will never operate on an ongoing basis following the very first activation of the phone.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] non1oson:
:eek:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] dxzh:
SGS3 Kitkat

Not a joke as I have unlocked SGS3 which I have no intention of submitting to Kitkat if it means region locking it and I therefore paid particular attention to the answer. In practice the (in)significance of the region lock will probably have been clarified long before Kitkat appears. While a proper clarification of the region lock issue may take time to materialise, I do not doubt that the Kitkat update will take longer!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] smuly:
Join us, it works.:good::laugh:
[Galaxy Note 3 General] lucfeenstra:
So far Chinese and thai sim cards don't seem to work after activating with EU sim first
[Galaxy Note 3 General] senectus:
Wow, people are losing their minds over such a minor thing.

Unless you're a grey market business you really shouldn't get that cranky... For consumers it's either a nothing situation or a minor inconvenience.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] redpill2016:
Which forum do you think the grey market people visit? ;)
[Galaxy Note 3 General] wfire:
This is true for me as well. I just took all my Samsung gear, literally all of it, and put it in a bag. Gonna wipe it and dump it. Ugh.

I can't stand the thought that stuff I already own may be retroactively locked by some remote too-much-like-Apple-now evil empire.

How could they do this to us?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] marceloboom:
might resolve with Ariza patch, my note 2 was no network after update, after Ariza returned to normal...sorry my bad english... :f
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Huxflux:
Well, maybe it isn't a minor thing when your fully paid,

not

grey market phone doesn,t work as it supposed to. Maybe due to porly implemented sim lock bulls..t, I don't know, but at least it makes me cranky...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] wfire:
+10000000!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] wdkingery:
Hahaha you clowns learn2google. It's not a problem.

Read http://www.ibtimes.com/samsung-galaxy-note-3-release-how-avoid-regional-sim-lock-problems-1412136
[Galaxy Note 3 General] LostZeit:
I bought my Note 3 in kuwait with the following sticker attached, unfortunately I can not read Arabic so I'm not sure what that says.

I'm using a Kuwait SIM in it fine but when I take it out and put in my Thailand SIM it's coming up with a PIN entry screen. Is there anything else you have to do to activate the SIM besides being on the correct network?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Superdad_98:
Basically it is stating that the phone only work in the listed countries
[Galaxy Note 3 General] non1oson:
this ^^
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Ev0d3vil:
Wow. Not getting the note 3 if that's the case. Onto LG or even apple.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] iznee:
I have a feeling Samsung is going to lose a lot of customers here in the middle east...majority of people in the middle east are expatriates..who works here and go back home or some other places for vacation...who the hell are gonna pay for roaming on holiday???...WTF samsung!!!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] lucfeenstra:
If you had actually read the previous posts then you would have found that not all devices are unlocked by using a local sim card..
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Huxflux:
If some other clowns learn2read they will learn that it doesn't work that way always. And even if it possible to buy a unlock code, why should one have too when Samsung fu...d up? They should supply them for free, just because your link states that they will, other ones here states that they won't or that they don't have a clue about it...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Dumbo53:
Do I think the main reason for this is to control "gray market sales"? No! Who is going to benefit the most from a loss of unlocked phones? The telecoms, as many people will be forced to use their roaming services when travelling. Is Samsung probably getting something valuable if they can get this change through? You bet! A deal was made one way or the other.

To me it smells like another telecom inspired power play. I remember having an unlimited data plan once (in the US) and then one fine day it was "throttled", effectively no longer unlimited. Because no law makers stopped them, this became accepted practice.

Before that tethering was free, until the telecoms realized they could lock up the ability to tether and then turn around and sell it back to us - without even providing so much as a kilobyte in the "tethering plan". Again users complained but lawmakers did nothing.

I think the reason Samsung is not releasing a statement (and keeping their wording vague and confusing) is they are trying to shove this whole thing through before anyone notices. They are trying to force us onto the telecoms roaming charges. Follow the money.

I know that they have every chance to succeed with this if users limit themselves to boycotting the Note 3. After all, they plan to roll this out on all models - soon we'll all have no choice. Or if users only write bad reviews. Same result. (Though I do think it is great to do both! Definitely a media campaign against it is necessary. Oh they must be biting their nails over lost sales and the risk in this gambit.)

No, the only thing that will stop this dead in its tracks is action by lawmakers - first of all in the EU (even the thought of getting the US congress to consider this makes me choke with laughter). Perhaps a letter writing campaign to the relevant EU regulators. Perhaps some of our European members can help us out here?

I would love to be wrong about this, and if Samsung walked back from it and cancelled their "update" plans - great! "Oh how paranoid I was!" I'll be the first to laugh and clap my hands and agree. But right now it looks like a movie I've seen before.

And btw, if Samsung were trying to do something like what I and some others are suspecting, don't you think it would be to their benefit to post the sort of things we've seen here that distract, belittle claims of problems, encourage giving up, muddy the waters? Just saying... /end rant/

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317
[Galaxy Note 3 General] DjeMBeY:
Official FW with Modified CSC - Regional Lock Removed

I've created ROM based on latest SM-N9005_XXUBMI7 with modified CSC

- Regional Lock has been REMOVED

- HD VOICE enabled as Standard on ALL Networks

- System & Device Status - OFFICIAL,

- After flashing - KNOX WARRANTY VOID remained 0x0!!!! Happy days! (TESTED by Guitarfreak26)

Now, who want to test it against Regional Lock?? It MUST be "Brand New phone, NOT ACTIVATED YET"...

Flash this FW first and then activate with foreign SIM card.. It should be "Lock FREE" ;)

DOWNLOADS: <<< Android Host >>>

Please report!!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Pat.:
Pffft... the article does nothing more than collaborate the information already given in this thread & raises the same concerns already covered in this thread.

But thanks for confirming your local MacDonald's has free WiFi....
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Onweel2:
Is he read the thread ?

IS he real ? He open this trade and read the last page ?

Is he always keep him self in his country all the time ?

Pay 700 Euro for the unlock phone then it is not ? Let the company do what ever they want to the costumer ?

Let the company say something that is not truth then move on. wow please told where are you from. I would like to open a company and welcome you as my beloved customer.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] tmj12:
I went into the official London Samsung Experience Store in Straftford and had a good play at the Note 3 on display. I must admit that I really like the Note 3. It doesn't feel too big in the hand as it's thin and light. I immediately felt that I wanted to purchase one. However, all these reported regional SIM lock issues have really put me off buying one and it's such a shame.

I did ask the member of staff in store about the regional SIM lock and the first sales rep I spoke to was completely unaware of this issue. The second one (who happened to be an Asian from the far east) I asked said that he had a Note 3 too and he was able to use his UK Note 3 with a local Korean SIM card when he travelled to Korea (I believe South Korea). Not sure if this is just a ploy to get the sale.

It seems that the information given out by Samsung themselves or indeed their member of staff even at the flagship store in London is not consistent and this is of a concern to me to a point that I am not prepared to rush into purchase one just yet as I travel a lot and usually use a local SIM card abroad and not being able to do that is a deal breaker for me!

This regional SIM lock is a scandalous debacle by Samsung and I hope they realise the damage they are doing to the sale. Nowadays, most people travel and do they really expect people to use their home SIM card to roam abroad? If it's an 'unlocked' contract-free phone that is purchased, what makes them think they have the right to impose on someone which SIM cards should be used abroad!!

I have been a big fan of Samsung products in the last couple of years and Samsung, I hope you come to your senses soon enough before more damage is done!

For now, I'm just going to wait it out to see if there's any further developments with regards to the to the workaround or hopefully an official statement from Samsung of possible resolution to this.

Also, I'm interested to know that if Asian Note 3 LTE models from Malaysia or Hong Kong have this regional SIM lock restriction. If not, I might purchase one from there and bring it back to the UK as I have plan to travel out there later in the year.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] DjeMBeY:
It looks like Samsung "Factory SIM-Locked" all N3's but at different level then usually... There's few levels to sim-lock/unlock Samsung devices:

- Unfreeze: 12345678

- NCK: 12345678 - Network lock

- SCK: 12345678 - Subset lock

- SPCK: 12345678 - SP lock

Most of Samsung handsets need only the NCK code, however they may have locked it down at alternative lock level such as SCK or SPCK... :p
[Galaxy Note 3 General] RavenY2K3:
Can't be hardware thing for SIM locks, else we wouldn't have the array of SIM unlock software we have?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] iakovl:
people...

the new "unlocked" for samsung is "EU unlocked" so it works in all EU

just unlock it, nothing major
[Galaxy Note 3 General] grifter9931:
Crazy how the phone manufacturer "Samsung" is getting the

"heat"

for something that is Telecom requested and enforced...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] gavinfabl:
how would that be done? and what is you go to US and want to use a local sim?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] iakovl:
some one has to kill me... is this something new for every one?

most phones sold on earth are locked to one company, you just unlock them... make them simfree

the new N3 isn't simfree its EU unlocked... close but not the same.

we have guides on XDA on unlocking phones, the only problem in this case is the people got confused by "unlocked" thinking its "simfree"
[Galaxy Note 3 General] gavinfabl:
Ok so not everyone is as clever as you :)

Link please...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] iakovl:
:p

the note3 is "too new" no guide for it for now

but looks at the guide for the S4 to see the "idea" http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2282683
[Galaxy Note 3 General] KevinsH:
Does somebody try it ?

http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2282867&stc=1&d=1380137959
[Galaxy Note 3 General] daraj:
We got shafted by Samsung!!!

I wonder how negrie electronics are selling theirs to the world!! Factory unlocked ones dont have that restriction?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] iakovl:
nope, people just confused "unlocked" with "sim free" very simple mistake but not fatal
[Galaxy Note 3 General] daraj:
What if you try to unlock it with a code and it tells you its already unlocked(EU unlocked)!!!!

Bootloaders...Qfuses...Knox... and now this!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] tech0815:
Because of all this sh*t i canceled my Note 3 order!
[Galaxy Note 3 General] shin lucifer:
The geek freak personality of mine was screaming at me to pre-order N3. The sage personality of mine simply responded with Patience is a virtue. I am glad i didnt pre-order this. I will wait for Developer edition or wait till XDA community save N3 from its maker and free its from all the dang confinement its been put in.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] iakovl:
give me a N3 and we will see...

i don't get what all the fuss is about, people in israel keep getting USA phones that are locked and just unlock them to sim free

no one ever said a thing about it, USA cellphone is locked to a single operator is OK for every one

now samsung made it locked to all EU operators but did the mistake and called it "unlocked" and not "eu unlocked" or "eu locked" big deal

i unlocked USA phones and will unlock EU phones, the earth still goes on.... no one died

why?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] hpacura:
I thought SIM-Free means Carriers-Unlocked so phones can be used on any carriers worldwide. Apparently this note 3 is equipped with a new feature - Regional Locked. So I guess now we have 3 versions of phones:

1) SIM-Locked ( Carrier-Locked) - this only works with specific carrier (can be unlocked to work with other carriers)

2) SIM-Free (Carriers-Unlocked) - this works with all carriers within the region.

3) This new SIM-Free Regional-Locked???

Samsung is planning to move millions of note 3. Good luck with this restriction.

I canceled my order for 4 units with Clove because of this bs :(
[Galaxy Note 3 General] ayjaym:
I have posted a submission to slashdot over this issue and also raised a complaint with Trading Standards. This is clearly a deceptive trade practice given the long-standing understanding of the term 'unlocked' in common use and hopefully if we all make enough fuss Samsung will make the unlock codes available. This is, frankly, completely unacceptable and if this isn't stamped out now, other manufacturers will rapidly follow suit.

As it stands, when I travel down to New Zealand shortly, I will have to take a second phone with me so that I can use a local SIM card. This is not what I just paid over six hundred pounds for, frankly.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] beasty54:
To you guys getting the sim lock, are you trying a non European sim in Europe with no network to connect to? Again i've tried my simple mobile sim and obviously it has nothing to connect to in the UK but i don't get any lock screen asking for a pin.
[Galaxy Note 3 General] dovid:
The reason people are nervous is straightforward:

1) The phones claim to be "Unlocked' - they are not.

2) There is no evidence that traditional unlock methods will work -

a) I have discussed this with my source for unlocking phones by code - he unlocks about 100,000 phones a year, and has access to all the databases. He has never heard of such a thing, and is not confident that codes will be available.

b) Software solutions may or may not be available. Even so, not everybody is technical enough (or wants) to start butchering their phones. Further, we have customers who need these phones unlocked for network-testing purposes. They are aware of the software-unlock methods and do not want that as they claim it messes with the phone's firmware.

3) No one was informed of this before they purchased the device. Even the largest distributors (10s of thousands of phones - not retailers) only found out about it today.and have no answers

This is totally different than just purchasing an AT&T phone from the USA and getting it unlocked in Israel. Everybody knows how to do it and where to get it done. However, nobody knows how to do this phone, or if it even can be unlocked as this is a new type of lock that nobody yet understands or has successfully unlocked.

We also have these phone on our website, and we had to call each one of our customers that pre-ordered and explain the situation. Some didn't mind, and some were really pissed off and cancelled the orders.

I hope you are correct, and we can all pay our $20.00 and get the code. However, that remains to be seen.

And, on an OEM, carrier-unbranded device that can cost $900, and claims to be "factory unlocked" but is not, it is just bad business IMHO.

Dovid Feldman

On The Go Solutions, Inc
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Huxflux:
I tried my thai simcard that works fine with other phones, but with note 3 i get the sim unlock screen. Realy pissed off by this...
[Galaxy Note 3 General] basilbaby:
I have some SM-N900 with Region lock with me. Can I try this firmware on them? If not, will you help us by creating a custom CSC or OS for SM-N900.

Also Is it can be done by flashing CSC only through MMC?
[Galaxy Note 3 General] Chiron43:
I'm a Hong Kong resident and went to some local store a few days ago to check the Note3. I also checked online on the different local network operators (in case I subscribe a plan with the handset so that i can get some of its cost covered)

As far as i know the version of Note3 in Hong Kong is not region-locked.

BUT all of them provide "only" 16Gb of memory version at the moment whereas other markets are receiving 32/64Gb.

Since i'm a newly registered user here, i can not post a link as it is, but this information about the 16Gb was confirmed by sammobile.com in a news from 22 Sept.

EDIT : I also checked in Singapore and they have the 32/64Gb of N9005