Warning to anyone considering travelling with their Canadian model Samsung phone in Europe.
Unlike iPhone or Pixel, Samsung purposely locks out LTE and 5G band 28 on their Canadian model Samsung phones. Without this band, you will likely have NO cellular service indoors when in Europe/Australia, even if you use a European or Australian SIM card.
Samsung: Your Canadian model phones such as the S22, 23, 24 and 25 series phones, as well as the Z Flip and Fold series phones are capable of supporting band 28. Please unlock this band immediately. No excuses. Thank you.
We appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns regarding LTE and 5G band support while traveling. While some bands may not be available on certain models due to regulatory and carrier agreements, we continuously evaluate customer feedback to improve our products.
We recommend checking with local carriers to ensure network compatibility and exploring alternative bands supported by your device in your destination country.
You may also submit feedback through the Samsung Members app, which helps us better understand user needs for future updates.
It's not a regulatory requirement because the Canadian models of iPhone (since iPhone 12) and Google Pixel support these bands and allow you to use them in Europe.
It's not a carrier agreement issue as I purchased an unlocked phone directly from Samsung Canada.
So instead of inventing false, boilerplate explanations, please just go to your engineering team, tell them to enable it and we can call it a day.
I am pretty sure the regulatory requirements are in place, I've never dealt with 5g laws, but I know for a fact you cant use certain gsm/lora bands or you go to jail. But, the pixel and iPhone seem to be unlocked, so I don't really know what to say. Maybe they are international models instead of canadian models?
Yes so if Apple, Google and other manufacturers can enable these bands, it follows that the claim that regulations prohibit Samsung from also enabling them is false.
Purchasing directly from Samsung Canada, does not make a difference, because as soon as you insert a Canadian Carrier's SIM, it is tied to that Carrier. Unlocked in Canada only means that you can switch Carriers without paying a fee to unlock it from a Canadian Carrier.
However, if you insert a non-Canadian SIM into an unlocked phone purchased in Canada, it still does not unlock these bands. In this case, Samsung has no reason to be tied to any specific Canadian carrier agreement since the sale of the phone had nothing to do with a carrier.
I think it may just be time for Samsung to unlock the bands, rather than continuing to try to reason with or defend their anti-customer practices.
Was the non Canadian SIM the first SIM you inserted?
I do agree that Rogers, for example, has a reputation for not allowing certain functions to work, if the device was not purchased through them, ie: WiFi Calling was one of the functions. I don't know if it's still the case?
No but I'm not sure why any of this matters. I just want Samsung to fix the issue. I really couldn't care less about CSC's or any other Samsung nonsense. The important point is that they're blocking functionality that is important for using their phones when travelling, and which other manufacturers do not block.
