[Galaxy Note 3 General] midnite_blue:
Want to perform a valuable experiment?

Yes, it's in there. No, you needn't worry about any sim disabling your phone. Last fall, Samsung customer service representatives learned about region locking from consumers calling in with problems... they had received absolutely no training about it. Some of them were making stuff up rather than simply saying, ''I don't know.'' We heard reports here of a few of them saying that using

any

out-of-region sim -- not just the ones on the blacklist of 63 MCC's, which they also didn't know about -- would lock the phone until you took it to one of their service centers. This simply wasn't true.

That's an 'I' in your build #, not a 'J,' which means you have a September version of Android (A=January, etc.). It also means you have Region Lock #1. By MJ7 Samsung was implementing a second version of the region lock.

Now that you have your phone, the first thing I would recommend is keeping WiFi off... or turning it off if you've had it on already. (If you have had it on for any length of time, I'm guessing you've probably noticed Samsung pressing you to download and install a firmware update. If you'd be interested in doing a harmless but potentially valuable experiment...

...don't update right away!

a)

1. Answer questions 1 through 3 in post #107 before doing anything else, except maybe downloading one of those explorer apps I mentioned, above (which, admittedly, you'll need a data connection for!)

2. Try your Moldovan sim. I just added this step to make the experiment a little tighter. I'm sure you'll get the region-lock screen, but we should probably confirm this. Don't worry, this won't hurt anything.

b) Make sure both both WiFi

and

mobile data are switched off. Follow your original idea to insert the Romanian sim... and perform the 5 minutes (no more than 6 minutes) of voice calls. This means you'll have to have voice service, likely with one of those three carriers you mentioned.

c)

1. Try your Moldovan sim. This will be quite interesting to see if 5 minutes of voice calls with no data connection will release the region lock for the MI4 build.

2. Now turn your WiFi and/or mobile data packets on. Make sure you have a good data connection so the attestation process can happen. Wait an hour -- with no more calls with the Romanian sim, and then try your Moldovan sim again.

d) I'm sure you're super eager to get your phone up and running with your Moldovan sim so go ahead and update your firmware at this point... then repeat 'a.1' 'a.2' 'b' and 'c.1' and 'c.2' above. (Of course, the date of manufacture won't change.)

I doubt very much that MI4 will work without a data connection of some sort... but Samsung has never admitted you need to have that to unlock... though a couple of customer service reps implied it. If after an hour of data connection, MI4 unlocks with only 5 minutes of calls using an in-region sim... great! You'll have an unlocked phone and we will have learned more about that earlier build... and that you need a data link to unlock.

After you update your firmware, the 5 minutes of calls should be enough to meet the use-criterion, but, again, it will be interesting to see if a data link is required.

If you're still locked after the update and that subsequent round of the experiment, the problem is probably that you're too far away from the attestation server. Science would dictate a trip to visit your sister to continue the experiment in Romania where it will probably unlock (which would be valuable to know)... but it would be a lot faster to buy an unlock code from the Internet at that point!

Feel free to ask questions about any of this... and to report back as often as you would like throughout the process I've described. I'm eager to hear how it goes!