OnePlus recently launched its new flagship OnePlus 11 smartphone in the global market. The worldwide launch obviously came around a month after the domestic launch in China. As the device is yet to go on sale in many regions, eager customers and fans of the brand have already sourced the device from China. However, it has been discovered that these models are region-locked.

The discovery was announced on the Russian 4PDA forum. Apparently, a OnePlus 11 device purchased from China was functioning well for approximately two weeks, until a message appeared stating “You are using a region-specific phone. Its calling capabilities are limited in your area. Please contact customer service for assistance.” Following this, the phone’s calling features were limited. It is uncertain if cellular data was also impacted.

After further investigation into the TeleService.apk (com.android.phone) app that generated the warning message, the forum members discovered the configuration files that outline the markets where the region-locking behavior is activated, based on the Mobile Country Codes (MMCs) of the region. The restricted region list is quite long and includes markets like India, Italy, Russia, and Brazil.

Further digging into OplusEngineerNetwork.apk has also revealed that there is a way to lift this region lock from these OnePlus 11 smartphones, which requires a 16-digit unlock code. It’s possible that this code could be obtained for each device by reaching out to OnePlus support. However, it remains uncertain whether support would be willing to unlock phones that were not purchased through official Chinese channels, but rather through third-party retailers.

That being said, the reason for this region locking is unconfirmed as of yet. We can assume that it’s likely due to OnePlus selling the global version of the OnePlus 11 in these regions. So it is likely that the brand wants to sell the phones through official channels in these regions rather than customers getting them over from China via third-party retailers.

It remains to be seen if OnePlus’s sister companies like Oppo and Realme also adopt this region-locking strategy for Chinese models of their popular devices.

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