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May 26, 2009

According to various reports, North Korea now allows limited Internet service for mobile phone users, months after it launched an advanced network in cooperation with an Egyptian telecommunications company.

The new service allows North Koreans to access a website through their cell phones to see news reports carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency as well as news about the capital Pyongyang.

In December 2008, North Korea introduced an advanced mobile phone network in partnership with Cairo-based Orascom Telecom. That marked the first time that North Koreans were allowed to use mobile phones since a previous mobile service was shut down without explanation more than five years ago.

As seen on an ordinary computer screen, the website also allows viewers to listen to North Korean music, get information about books, art and investment opportunities in North Korea and even engage in Internet chatting. But it's still unknown if those services are now available in the mobile version.

Nor is it known if the service is restricted to the capital Pyongyang or available elsewhere.

Orascom said that the 3G network was initially deployed to cover Pyongyang, which has a population of more than 2 million people, with plans to expand coverage to the entire country over the next several years.

The overall number of mobile phone users has reached 20,000 by the end of March, including some foreigners, Tokyo-based Choson Sinbo newspaper, considered a mouthpiece for the North Korean regime.

As can be expected, mobile phone use in a country such as North Korea comes with some restrictions. One of them is that phones do not allow contact with the outside world, or with the special telephone networks that foreigners are normally permitted to use inside North Korea.

It will be interesting to see this new trend unfold itself over the next year, and if the North Korean government will shut down the service a second time soon...

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Source: NKNS.