Frequent readers might recall that I posted a story about Samsung apparently region locking the Galaxy Note III. According to GigaOm, Samsung has clarified the situation:
Samsung shed further light on its region-locking policies on Friday, explaining that the locks only affect users the first time they activate the handset. The manufacturer also said the locks apply not only to the new Galaxy Note 3, as we reported on Thursday, but also to units of the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 mini, Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III that were produced after July.
In a nutshell, this means that — apart from the first time they put a SIM card in the phone — buyers of these devices are able to use cards from other parts of the world without restriction. They are not forced to pay their domestic carrier’s usurious roaming fees.
Samsung said this in a German-language statement emailed to me by its German press relations agency. At the time of writing, I haven’t seen any English-language statement on the matter.
And…:
Anyhow, here’s how the system is supposed to work, according to Samsung’s German reps: let’s say you buy the device in Germany and want to take it with you on a trip to the U.S. If you activate it for the first time using a German SIM card, you’re good to go. If you want to activate it for the first time with a U.S. SIM card while abroad, you will need to find a local Samsung service partner to unlock it for you.
Once that initial activation has been accomplished, you can use the phone with whatever SIM card you want.
That sounds reasonable to me. Though there’s all of this that is still outstanding:
- Why did Samsung do this?
- Why do the stickers on the retail boxes clearly say the phones are not compatible with SIM cards from other regions, if that is not the case?
- Do Samsung service partners have to unlock all devices that are presented to them?
Then there are the technical questions, about how Samsung applies the locks (SIM module firmware? Software?) – hopefully these too will be answered in time.
The question about service partners’ obligations is important, because the most likely (albeit still unconfirmed) explanation for this whole debacle is that Samsung instituted the locks in an attempt to combat gray-market sales — a European buying a phone from Hong Kong over eBay, for example. If Samsung service partners have to unlock any improperly activated Galaxy Note 3 or S4 that the customer wants, however, then this measure becomes one of inconvenience rather than enforcement.
I think this all could have been avoided if Samsung better articulated this up via the stickers that got everyone up in arms rather than have it blow up the way it did. Hopefully they learn from this and manage this better the next time.
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This entry was posted on September 27, 2013 at 11:53 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Samsung. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Samsung Clarifies Claims Of Region Locking
Frequent readers might recall that I posted a story about Samsung apparently region locking the Galaxy Note III. According to GigaOm, Samsung has clarified the situation:
Samsung shed further light on its region-locking policies on Friday, explaining that the locks only affect users the first time they activate the handset. The manufacturer also said the locks apply not only to the new Galaxy Note 3, as we reported on Thursday, but also to units of the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 mini, Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III that were produced after July.
In a nutshell, this means that — apart from the first time they put a SIM card in the phone — buyers of these devices are able to use cards from other parts of the world without restriction. They are not forced to pay their domestic carrier’s usurious roaming fees.
Samsung said this in a German-language statement emailed to me by its German press relations agency. At the time of writing, I haven’t seen any English-language statement on the matter.
And…:
Anyhow, here’s how the system is supposed to work, according to Samsung’s German reps: let’s say you buy the device in Germany and want to take it with you on a trip to the U.S. If you activate it for the first time using a German SIM card, you’re good to go. If you want to activate it for the first time with a U.S. SIM card while abroad, you will need to find a local Samsung service partner to unlock it for you.
Once that initial activation has been accomplished, you can use the phone with whatever SIM card you want.
That sounds reasonable to me. Though there’s all of this that is still outstanding:
Then there are the technical questions, about how Samsung applies the locks (SIM module firmware? Software?) – hopefully these too will be answered in time.
The question about service partners’ obligations is important, because the most likely (albeit still unconfirmed) explanation for this whole debacle is that Samsung instituted the locks in an attempt to combat gray-market sales — a European buying a phone from Hong Kong over eBay, for example. If Samsung service partners have to unlock any improperly activated Galaxy Note 3 or S4 that the customer wants, however, then this measure becomes one of inconvenience rather than enforcement.
I think this all could have been avoided if Samsung better articulated this up via the stickers that got everyone up in arms rather than have it blow up the way it did. Hopefully they learn from this and manage this better the next time.
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This entry was posted on September 27, 2013 at 11:53 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Samsung. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.