unlock

[el3men2809]

Can the verizon galaxy s3 be unlocked to be used by another carrier in the dominican republic.

[bsweetness]

Officially, the Verizon S3 does not have support for GSM networks at this time. The hardware is there, but it's not enabled in the software. Verizon has said that a future update will enable the GSM capabilities of the phone. Once that happens, it will automatically be unlocked for use with any GSM carrier around the world.

Alternatively, you can use some work arounds in order to enable the GSM radios if you can't or don't want to wait on Verizon's update. Here's a thread on XDA-Developers that has a couple different ways of doing it. But of course, like with anything like this that isn't officially supported, you'll do that at your own risk.

[el3men2809]

I was told that the phone could be unlock there...by claro or orange

[bsweetness]

I was told that the phone could be unlock there...by claro or orange

Currently, that's not true unless you use one of the methods in the thread I linked to. The hardware is there to use GSM, but the software is not. Once it is enabled (either officially by Verizon or through a work around), there will be no need to unlock it. It will already be unlocked.

[el3men2809]

Ok..so there is no way of unlocking this phone yet....even I they put a unlock code like they told me...

[bsweetness]

Ok..so there is no way of unlocking this phone yet....even I they put a unlock code like they told me...

The phone is already unlocked. There are no need for any codes now or in the future.

But the problem isn't that. The problem is that at this time, the phone only works on Verizon's CDMA and LTE networks. The GSM radio that would be needed in the Dominican Republic does not work right now. If you put a SIM from a Dominican carrier in the phone, it wouldn't work because the GSM radio doesn't work, not because of it being locked or unlocked.

So, long story short, the phone won't work right now in the Dominican Republic unless you use one of the methods in the thread I linked to, but those are unofficial workarounds that aren't 100% guaranteed to work or to work consistently.