What does "international" mean when referring to Samsung Galaxy Tab S T707 4GLTE Tablet

[AC Question]

Bought unactivated At&t carrier based Samsung Galaxy Tab S 4G LTE Tablet in US from Best Buy. Told by ATT unlock would be no problem. They have totally screwed up this process. Without boring you with all details of the idiots I've dealt with for over 24 hours of phone time since early December, I just say Samsung was contacted with ATT and said would have to manually put in IMEI # so that ATT can match up and get unlock code. Did unlock request, thought everything would be alright, however, Att informed me today that tablet is an international tablet and originated in Australia, can't provide unlock code because there is not one. Dec 7th, att tech told me I didn't need to unlock because it was unactivated and I could go ahead and mail it to kid's friend in Australia. So I am not tech savvy at all, and this doesn't make sense. Friend in Australia tried to swap out sim card at Australian provider and was told it was locked. So what's definition of "international" and/or unactivated? Ironic it's supposedly originated in Australia and that's where it was sent!!! Thanks for any insight!!!

 

[Rukbat]

Re: What does "international" mean when referring to Samsung Galaxy Tab S T707 4GLTE Tablet

"International" refers to the data frequencies it has radios for. Unlocked means it will accept SIMs from other carriers. One has nothing to do with the other. If it's an international version it's not an AT&T version, so AT&T wouldn't have the unlock code - the carrier it's locked to would. (If it's the international version and locked to AT&T, something's wrong. What might be happening is that you had a US [AT&T or TMobile] SIM in it, and it region-locked to North America. I don't knoww of any way to unlock that on current versions (4.4 and up) of Androoid, but you can check over at XDA Forums. (Chainfire, who wrote a region unlock app, hangs out there.)