
The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked - pjmlp
http://gigaom.com/2013/09/26/seriously-samsung-sorry-european-roamers-but-the-new-galaxy-note-3-is-region-locked/
======
nailer
Disappointing, but not a surprise:

1\. Galaxy S 3 includes undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark [http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=1707047](http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=1707047)

2\. Galaxy custom web browser allows random web sites to make links that wipe
and reset the phone: [http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/117422-samsung-
galaxy-s-3-re...](http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/117422-samsung-
galaxy-s-3-reset)

~~~
gamblor956
#1 is not a GS3 problem, it is a carrier problem specific to Vodafone, which
had a marketing deal with Pizza Hut at the time of the GS3's release. Other
carriers did not forcibly include undeletable Pizza Hut bookmarks.

~~~
onedognight
No. It's a Samsung problem. You don't see crapware on iPhones do you?

~~~
Sheepshow
I don't like it any more than you, but to Samsung and its investors, the
undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark is a feature. Not only does it generate
additional revenue with little additional design time, but it also indicates
that Samsung has a healthy and attractive business in which other businesses
would like to participate.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
Somehow I find it hard to interpret an undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark as a
sign of a healthy business.

It has the familiar smell of desperation to monetize everything. Unless of
course Samsung is striving to be known as the Ryanair of consumer electronics.

~~~
malandrew
We blame Samsung. Most users will just deal with it. Few and far between care
enough about crapware to abandon a phone manufacturer over it (assuming they
even blame Samsung for it at all).

Marketing people from major companies use a Samsung phone and sees the
bookmark will think "I wish our brand was there. How do we reach out to the
carrier or Samsung to put our brand there as well?"

a few weeks later in a meeting with a carrier or Samsung, "Yes, we can put a
bookmark there for X dollars. However if you want it to be undeletable, you
can pay 2X dollars" or "Pizza Hut is paying us 2X dollars for that and we
don't want to put more than one there, so you need to outbid pizza hut for
that spot."

next step.... money rolling in.

~~~
mietek
Next step: [http://i.imgur.com/Sptabbs.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Sptabbs.jpg)

------
edward
My HP printer is region-locked. When I moved from Europe to the US it refused
to accept ink cartridges bought in the US.

~~~
georgeott
Reminds me of my Brother Printer/Fax/Scanner. Once ANY of the 4 ink carts is
empty, you can no longer do ANYTHING. No scanning to a SD card, no outbound
faxes, etc, until you replace the ink. Of course, there is a simple "tape over
the holes" hack to get around this, but it's still lame.

~~~
mmanfrin
This is disappointing -- I really like my barebones brother laser printer, I
thought they might be one of the few honest printer manufacturers.

~~~
tedunangst
I think inkjets and lasers are basically different companies. From every
vendor. The laser products just work, the inkjet products just don't.

~~~
georgeott
I could not agree more. I also have a Brother Laser, and it's been rock solid
for years. Inkjets were always a waste of money, ink, and time!

------
casca
I think that this is a great opportunity to clarify laws. There are a few EU
countries that require phones to be SIM-unlocked at the end of contracts. The
question is - will this fall foul of those laws, as people can use the device
with other carriers in Europe but not outside? There will presumably be a
court case around this (as it's the first one) and the result will probably
force even more openness for EU citizens based on Neelie Kroes' previous
successes.

~~~
bluecalm
The problem is with bundling. Carriers should be forbidden to bundle phones
and plans long time ago. It's antitrust issue and a big one. Microsoft faced
trouble for bundling their browser with operating system which you could
easily replace with any other one while carriers are forcing phone
manufacturers to accept ridiculous terms (unless they are Apple or recently
Google) and customers have no way uninstall all the crapware.

~~~
mark212
you're getting your terms wrong. The antitrust concept is called "tying" and
what it means is using a lawfully-acquired monopoly (or dominant) position in
one market to increase market share in another. Because no carrier has
anything like a monopoly position in any market, and no phone manufacturer
does either, is very far from an antitrust issue.

It may be scummy and short-sighted, but it doesn't implicate antitrust law.

~~~
bluecalm
In a sense cartel of carriers has a monopoly. That is even without any
conscious wrong doing from their side they act like monopoly forcing prices
and terms on manufacturers (breaking the cartel isn't in their interest so
even if all of them want to do the best for themselves and don't collude the
factual cartel won't be broken). I was expressing the sentiment and I don't
doubt that as the law stands right now it's not formally "antitrust issue".
It's however very similar in nature and should be treated as such.

It's close to impossible to introduce a phone without being tied to a carrier.
That's exactly what monopoly looks like when dominant player (the one having a
monopoly) controls one of the crucial parts of supply chain and can just cut
you off if they wish (or if you don't comply).

Usual argument is that it's not a monopoly if you can shop around and choose
different provider. Here you really can't without putting yourself in very
unfavorable position comparing to players who do comply.

Back to bundling for a bit: it's a practice which is about always bad for a
customer. Bonuses, paybacks, plans with phones, loyalty points at gas station.
Every one of those reduces competition between providers/sellers by tying
customers to them. If about every provider on the market uses the same
bundling policy it becomes a monopoly from the point of view of manufacturers
of bundled product - they will never be able to compete without bending
backwards to meet the requirements of the monopoly owner(s). That was an idea
behind lawsuit vs Microsoft (dominant player bundling their browser making
competition (close to) impossible or even "unfair") and that's the exact same
situation with carriers or cable providers. Them being a cartel of several
instead of monolithic entity shouldn't cloud the issue here.

------
parennoob
Buy something else. Stat. It doesn't matter even if this is just a sticker put
up by some product marketing idiot, it shows that they feel good about
imposing these region-specific restrictions in a phone that operates according
to a global standard.

The nexus devices are generally good about this sort of thing. Most of
Samsung's other carrier-partnered phones are loaded with absolute crap anyway,
this is another good reason not to buy them.

~~~
mercurial
It shows that they are putting the interests of the carriers way above their
customers'. Now, that's a business decision, they have their own priorities,
and fiduciary duties to shareholders and all that, good for them. I'll just
take my money elsewhere in the future (and I don't even care about being able
to switch sim cards, really).

------
davidw
I recently went to the US for a few weeks. My Nexus 4 worked just fine with a
US SIM from T-Mobile. $70 for a month for voice and data was worth it, and
everything worked quite nicely. Big +1 for unlocked products!

~~~
reustle
I pay $30/month in the US for a t-mobile month-to-month sim with 5gb data
(soft cap), unlimited texts and 100 minutes on my nexus 4

~~~
batuhanicoz
Do you have a contract? That maybe why price you pay is cheaper. Seems like
parent was only in US for a short period of time, so he probably didn't wanted
to sign a, say 12 months, contract.

~~~
6450723
It's a prepaid plan with T-Mobile. No contract. Every Nexus 4 owner loves to
talk about it. Go look at the Nexus 4 subreddit, it's a circle jerk of people
who are "beating the system" by using a low-end phone on a sub-par carrier and
getting "unlimited data".

~~~
jrockway
Nice troll. You can get the same plan with any GSM phone.

T-Mobile is about the same as Sprint and AT&T, and all are sub-par to Verizon.
But what's nice about T-Mobile is that you get unlimited data, whereas with
Verizon, you'd better cash in your fleet of 777s to afford your bill.

------
nicpottier
Pure speculation here, but my guess is that this has to do with different
models being certified by different bodies. IE, perhaps the model sold in
Europe is subtly different and hasn't passed FCC or some other certification
for use in the states, ergo, they lock them to where they HAVE been certified.

Doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't buy it, but I don't think it is
something that is done for some evil reason as some will jump to.

~~~
simonh
If it was a certification issue it would affect every mobile device by every
device manufacturer. My guess is that this may be an attempt by Samsung to
crack down on grey market imports of their devices. The author suggests it
might be a requirement buy carriers, but again that would affect more than
just one manufacturer. At the moment we're all just speculating.

~~~
Zak
_My guess is that this may be an attempt by Samsung to crack down on grey
market imports of their devices._

Why would they want to do this? I could understand it in the case of a low-
priced device intended for poor regions of the world, but this is a high-end
phone that is presumably a similar (high) price everywhere it's sold.

~~~
rplnt
Not really. I can either buy phone from local distribution or pay 10-20% less
and get an imported one (wouldn't be surprised if it were from richer region,
such as NA). That is the shop is still making money after they moved it half a
globe and paid import taxes on it.

Because of that local distributors make much less money - they have to price
lower and they don't sell as much. And probably forced this onto Samsung,
which couldn't care less I guess since they still sold the phone in the end.

~~~
Zak
It seems to me that Samsung should care because there's a significant
correlation between people who engage in regular intercontinental travel and
people who buy expensive smartphones.

------
incongruity
If this is driven by carrier request, as the article speculates, then it is
yet another example of how the mobile market is broken... Are phone
manufacturers selling to consumers/end-users or are they selling to
networks/providers? You can't do both, equally -- at least not at the moment
-- because the carrier's interests and profit models generally directly
conflict with the interests of consumers. Until the wireless industry works a
bit harder to align themselves to the needs of their consumers, stuff like
this is going to happen. The exception are models like Apple's where they've
figured out how to consistently drive profits by focusing on the consumer and
using the phone as a platform for selling other things (i.e.: apps and content
like movies and music) -- the carriers are almost incidental in Apple's model.
Almost.

~~~
mikeash
Apple still works with the carriers quite a bit. For example, you can't turn
on tethering unless the carrier allows it (often requiring you to pay more
money), and most iPhones sold in the US are locked to a single carriers.

But who can blame them? Of the $650 cost of a new iPhone, the user only pays
$200, while the carrier pays $450. Apple knows where their bread is buttered.

~~~
dak1
Don't worry, you're paying that entire $650 (and usually then some). It's just
hidden in your contract price.

~~~
sigkill
THIS is what I don't understand. Why do people call it "subsidized" when
you're locked in to a 2 year contract with an early termination fee.

IT IS NOT SUBSIDIZED, PEOPLE.

You may say, well I'm paying the same per month whether I take a new phone or
not from the carrier, so... it's subsidized right? Nope, they're just gouging
you when you're on an old phone. Taking the new phone just _slightly_ reduces
your disadvantage. Let's put it this way, if MVNOs can offer you piggybacked
network rates at $X while traditional operators rates are $3X aren't you a bit
surprised? It's not that the operators are going to sell to MVNOs for a loss,
and not that MVNOs are going to sell to you for a loss.

~~~
rahoulb
It's subsidised in that they are fronting you the money.

My wife has about £100/month disposable income and pays about £30/month for
her handset and contract. When her renewal comes around she can buy the
handset for, say £400. Apart from to get that £400 she needs to go without
beer and eating out and new shoes for 4 months (never going to happen). Or
make do with less for, say, a year (very unlikely given she doesn't really
care enough about handsets).

Her alternatives are to take the contract and handset bundle or to buy the
handset on credit. Assuming she takes a SIM-only plan like mine (£13/month
with limits I've never exceeded) that leaves her with £17/month to pay off the
credit on £400. I've not done the figures but I'd say that probably works out
at around two years - so it doesn't really give her any advantage beyond
avoiding lock-in; which she'll only care about if we change country (remember
she's not really bothered about handsets)

Which is all a long way of saying that many people's priorities aren't the
same as ours (by which I mean frequenters of Hacker News) - which alters the
equation and makes buying off-contract less appealing than getting everything
up-front and paying for it over time.

Edit: typos

~~~
justincormack
If you come up with detailed numbers you can call it below market rate credit.
Not a subsidised phone, subsidised credit.

------
oliverw
I own a Samsung Galaxy S4 - and had a similar message on my box - "This
product is only compatible with a SIM-card issue from a mobile operator within
the Americas (The North, South and Central Americas and the Caribbean)".
However it works perfectly well with European SIM Cards (tested with both
Spanish and UK SIMs).

~~~
jrockway
I bought mine from Google Play and this message was not included.

------
biafra
This (german) source says that the free of charge unlock by a Samsung service
partner will make the device accept any SIM-Card. So it is not locked to the
new region: [http://allaboutsamsung.de/2013/09/samsung-gibt-statement-
gal...](http://allaboutsamsung.de/2013/09/samsung-gibt-statement-galaxy-
note-3-galaxy-s-4-und-co-ab-sofort-mit-regionaler-sim-karten-sperre/)

But why Samsung? Why?

------
da_n
I own a Galaxy Note 2 and decided quite soon after I would never buy Samsung
again even though I think it is a great piece of hardware. The issue is they
promised to release sources for certain drivers and never actually did,
CyanogenMod said they would not officially support the device[1]. Samsung feel
like an anti-consumer company, them pulling a stunt like this would not
surprise me[2].

[1] Thankfully they did just recently release a stable version.

[2] I also made the same decision about Sony years ago when they released
rootkits on their CD's.

------
Fando
Time for someone to create the most advance and far reaching global
communication network using satellites, towers and other methods and charge
everyone a small base fee for unlimited, global use. No contracts, no need for
text, data etc packages, no need for roaming fees. Just one simple payment a
month. Unlimited roaming, calling, data, texts, multimedia messages,
voicemail, call forwarding, etc. Big communication companies of the day will
die, as they should. Easy communication for all, no bs.

~~~
antihero
I guess we could do a Kickstarter. I mean, launching a network of
communications satellites can't be _that_ expensive, can it? Right?

------
rapht
Looking at Twitter and at Google's first 50 results on Note 3, I can't help
but wonder : is the marginal profit they expect from region-locking so high
that it will pay for all the bad buzz?

At first sight, even though pricing differences exist between regions around
the world, on this kind of products they are not that big, not to mention that
that part of these price differences come from retailing alone...

So these differences must be big enough to justify alienating your early
adopter userbase, thus endangering the whole adoption process, not to mention
bad PR that will stick. When you try too hard to get every cent out of people
and they start seeing it - and any locking of that kind screams "I'm going to
get more juice out of this" \- they generally don't like it.

------
Fuxy
Guess I won't be buying a Note 3. Sorry Samsung I use my money to vote and I
vote not to accept your terms.

------
jsz0
It's probably to stop people from importing cheaper devices from other
regions. Samsung wants the flexibility to price devices differently by
region/market and that doesn't work if the consumer can import the cheapest
one instead. This will probably continue to escalate because the way the
market is heading prices have to get lower in expanding/poorer markets while
customers in established/wealthier markets are willing to pay more. This is a
side effect of trying to win the race to the bottom on price.

------
sami36
if true, unconscionable. The FCC should get on this immediately. I, for one,
would never ever buy a Samsung product again. _if true_

------
Mikeb85
Yet another reason to only buy unlocked, developer friendly phones.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
This impacts unlocked Samsung phones.

~~~
Mikeb85
Yes. I mean developer friendly as in Nexus (hopefully stays that way), or
Firefox OS right now.

------
th0br0
My SGS4 actually had a similar sticker ... "European model - this product is
only compatible with a SIM-card from one of the following countries..."

~~~
biafra
Can you find out if this is true? Can you try a US SIM-card and see if it
works?

------
livejamie
Samsung Germany issued a statement on the issue. Apparently, more flagships
will be regionally locked, but users will get to unlock the phones at
Samsung’s service centers.

[http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-note-3-region-
lock-s...](http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-note-3-region-lock-
statement-277346/)

------
cbhl
Different regions have different frequencies, so this might just be a warning
that the Note 3 isn't penta-band.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
It isn't. The Note 3 has a list of blacklisted cellular operators outside your
region, if you try to use a sim card created by one of them you get an error
on the screen and it refuses to connect.

The leaflet is just a leaflet, the issue here is that Samsung have added
software intentionally designed to block cross-region usage.

~~~
r00fus
This just sounds so anti-consumer, I'm surprised. Do you have a citation that
identifies the blacklist?

If so, why would Samsung do something so blatantly anti-consumer? They're a
major corporation, they don't get jollies off this, where do they profit?

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
XDA extracted and posted the XML file with a list of carriers to block in it.

[http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=2457964&pag...](http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=2457964&page=17)

------
csense
This is a great business model from the standpoint of making profits (less so
from the standpoint of ethics or consumer satisfaction).

Most people don't travel internationally very frequently, and region locking
is not something that's marketed, so they only discover it when they actually
travel, and then they're forced to buy another phone!

Forget region locking, can't they inflate their profits further at their
customers' expense if they just use GPS or tower location to deactivate the
phone when the user gets 200 miles from home? That would increase your market
from international travelers to domestic travelers...

~~~
r00fus
Most folks don't buy another phone and the carrier makes a bundle on $2/min
calls from the foreign country.

The smarter folks buy a cheap $30 GSM/CDMA phone before the trip, the even
smarter ones have a world phone and confirm it's capable of taking foreign
sims (though having a fallback $30 GSM phone isn't a bad idea).

~~~
threedaymonk
> having a fallback $30 GSM phone isn't a bad idea

Especially if you need to use SMS two-factor authentication on your normal
home number. Trying to make a bank transfer when the code is sent to SIM A and
the data plan is on SIM B is otherwise an interesting challenge. (That's the
voice of experience.)

------
liquidcool
I've got a Note II and if you look on Wikipedia[1] you'll see there are 16
different models. Mine is one of the two designated as "International" and it
was factory unlocked.

I think we need to hold judgement until all the facts are in. It's very
possible that they will create an unlocked international version of the Note
III as well. From the outcry, it sounds like it would sell well. Only question
is if it will have the same limitation as the international Note II: no LTE.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Note_II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Note_II)

------
rythie
I'm guessing this an attempt at Price Discrimination:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination)

------
devx
This just goes to show that companies will put as many DRM restrictions as
possible on their devices and content, if there's no backlash, just because
they "think" it would be a good idea to do it. I wish the general public would
fight more against DRM, instead of simply accepting it by saying stuff like
"but that's the only way I can use X". It sends companies the wrong message.

------
kevinpet
This is probably about pricing in different markets. They can't sell cheaply
in China if those devices end up on ebay being shipped to the US.

~~~
fpgeek
But strangely the Asian models (e.g. Hong Kong) you'd think Samsung would
worry most about in the grey market don't seem to have this restriction:
[http://ausdroid.net/2013/09/26/galaxy-note-3-sim-
restriction...](http://ausdroid.net/2013/09/26/galaxy-note-3-sim-restriction-
asia-and-australia-stock/)

------
mercurial
As a happy Galaxy Note 2 user, that's extremely disappointing. Unless they do
an about-face shortly, they've just lost a customer.

------
WaterSponge
Haven't seen this mentioned. The phones are region locked only until activated
with a SIM from that Region. This way phones have to be used in there home
market. I suppose this is for controlling exports from UK or South America to
US.

A side... Sprint Iphones SIM SLOT are technically unlockable by Sprint but
only to regions/carriers not the US.

------
grannyg00se
I'm eagerly awaiting some clarification on this. I was going to buy a note 3
the day it becomes available through my carrier. If there is no workaround to
the region locking I'll stick with my blackberry 9900 until a better option
comes along (perhaps the HTC One Max).

------
eitland
Last time I asked a Canadian shop (staples and one other I think) for local
sim card I had to explain the concept of a separate sim card in detail.

Are sim cards more common now (or is this the one place where Americans has an
edge on Canadians? ;-)

~~~
FigBug
Every phone of mine has had a Sim card for at least 10 years. But the plans
are so expensive I imagine it's not very common for tourists to pick up sim
card while they are visiting Canada.

~~~
Mikeb85
That's why you get pre-paid SIM cards when travelling...

------
lurkinggrue
I'm still getting one but since I'm on sprint I never expected to use the
phone outside my region.

Can't want to have it rooted and remove as much of touchwiz as I can while I
wait for cyanogen to get ported.

------
antihero
What possible reason have they got to do this? Do they really think that
customers buying multiple phones will make up from the lost sales from people
who wont?

------
gesman
I bet Samsung was hoping to "quietly" trick customers and keep kickbacks from
carriers.

Welcome to the real world!

~~~
jacquesm
How would this stay quiet? All it takes is for one blogger to go traveling for
it to blow up.

~~~
gesman
Someone at Samsung apparently still lives in the past century.

Time to grab bag of popcorn and watch Samsung trying to save it's face ...

------
hornetblack
So Australian's won't be able to import them for the ~$100 saving.

(US price ~$740 in AUD, Aus ~$880)

------
whydo
Some unlocked and more open alternatives: Nexus, Firefox OS

------
taigeair
Samsung has really bad support for their phones. Not a fan.

------
DominikR
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has the same sticker and works with every SIM.

It's just that Samsung lacks focus and is incompetent at communicating with
its customers and non Korean employees.

Probably some idiot manager in Europe decided to put this sticker on the case
and they don't know about it (or didn't understand this) in their headquarter.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
According to Samsung only S4s made after July 2013 will be impacted. It has
been well confirmed that it isn't just a threat, if you insert the wrong SIM
you get an error.

------
guard-of-terra
It makes precisely zero sense in today's intreconnected world. If this is true
they're going to fail hard.

------
FridayWithJohn
Thank goodness I went for the HTC One instead then. I've personally bought
local SIM cards in Germany, Sweden, Spain, UK (where I got it from) and South
Africa.

