Mobile Phone Service Being Established in NK

SEOUL (Yonhap) — The groundwork for establishment of a mobile phone service is being laid in North Korea, said an official of an Egyptian company preparing to operate the service in the isolated communist country, according to a Washington-based radio station in early May.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) on May 1 quoted Stefano Songini, investor relations director of Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E., as saying in an e-mail interview, “Our operation people are currently on the ground working on the deployment of the business.” Orascom is the fourth-largest Arab mobile phone operator based in Cairo, Egypt. Songini, however, said, “We have not officially communicated a launch date for our operations.” Orascom earlier said the service will likely begin in May.

The RFA said the groundwork could mean setting up telecom towers or checking connections among mobile base stations, citing communication analysts in the United States.

Orascom said in a Jan. 30 press release that its subsidiary Cheo Technology was granted “the first commercial license to provide a mobile telephony service” in North Korea. Cheo secured a 25-year license and will invest up to US$400 million in network infrastructure over the first three years, along with service for the capital city Pyongyang and most of the major cities during the first 12 months in operation.

North Korean mobile phones will use the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access system, which can provide coverage of not only voice but also data like music and moving pictures, the RFA added.

Then, another Yonhap report claims that “Pyongyang tightly controls all means of transmitting information, including cellular phones, and in October executed the head of a factory in front of 150,000 people because he had made international phone calls…”

Currently, diplomats accredited in the DPRK and authorised North Koreans are using the “Sun-Net” - a GSM mobile system with several hundred subscribers and SIM cards on sale for 450 Euros per number.

LP