Source: Reuters
Secretive North Korea is expected to register the one millionth cellphone user on its new 3G network by the end of the year, barely four years after people were thrown into prison camps, or possibly even executed, for owning one.
Most of the users are in the capital of Pyongyang, home to the impoverished country’s elite and powerful who have the cash to splash out for a device and the calling fees.
“There has been an astronomical increase since even two years ago,” said Michael Hay, a lawyer and business consultant based in the capital for the past seven years.
Two years ago, there were fewer than 70,000 users.
“All the waitresses in coffee shops have them, as one example, and use them. Let’s not even talk about businessmen. They are never off them, and conversations are frequently interrupted by mobile calls,” Hay said.
The authoritarian government ended a ban on cellphones in 2008, signing a four-year deal with Egyptian company Orascom to build the 3G network in partnership with the government.
A report last month by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability said 60 per cent of people ages 20 to 50 use cellphones in Pyongyang, a city of some three million people who are strictly vetted by the state for residency permits.
“Especially for the younger generation in their 20s and 30s, as well as the merchant community, a cellphone is seen as a must, and many youngsters can no longer see their lives without it,” the report said.
Calling fees have fallen this year, driving the surge in demand, according to reports.
But you cannot dial into or out of the country, and there is no internet. The government still keeps a stranglehold on all news flows into the destitute state.
While the 3G network covers 94 per cent of the population, it still only covers 14 per cent of the territory, according to Orascom, involved in a joint venture with the government.
North Koreans who have defected to the South say the cost of buying a cellphone and the operating fees, mean owning such a 3G device is out of the question for most. Phones cost about US$350 in the country where the average monthly income is about US$15.
“The possession of cellphones was not limited by class, but not many people have cellphones because they are just too expensive,” said Kim Seong-hu, 40, who defected to the South in April. “Most commoners are satisfied with landlines we have.”
Analysts say the 3G network does not pose a threat to the government in the way cellphones have fuelled uprisings around the Arab world this year.
They say this is unlikely to happen in North Korea because strict state media controls limit what the poor know about the outside world and there is no immediate sense of revolt.
“In the long run, the growth of interaction between people is a problem for the regime, but it might take years, or even decades, before the situation will be ripe for an outbreak of internal discontent,” said Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul.
