By Sunny Lee
Korea Times Correspondent
BEIJING ― People in Pyongyang, if they can afford a cell phone, may be able to use one starting December, with the help of an Egyptian telecom company.
Orascom Telecom, a Cairo-based phone company, won the first mobile phone license in North Korea in January and has been working on building the necessary infrastructure in the capital city. In December it plans to provide a citywide mobile phone service to the general public.
The reclusive country only allows an exclusive group of cadre and foreign diplomats to use mobile phones. These "authorized people" are using a GSM-based mobile service. Orascom, however, uses 3G WCDMA technology, the person told the Korea Times.
In North Korea, mobile phones have been off-limits to the general public. In fact, cell phones are particularly sensitive in North Korea as security officials there believe that a cell phone was responsible for the 2004 failed assassination attempt on Kim Jong-il.
The incident saw the deaths of 170 North Koreans. Since then North Korea has banned citizens from using mobile phones in the country.
But with the introduction of the first city-wide mobile phone service network in the capital, citizens in Pyongyang will have access to mobile phone services. However, it is not clear how the security-phobic North Korea will implement the service.
North Korea granted the Orascom's license to the company's subsidiary CHEO Technology JV Company. In Orascom's business in North Korea, the Egyptian company holds 75 percent ownership, with the rest held by the North Korea's state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation, according to an earlier report by Cellular News.
The same report also said that telecom regulation officials in North Korea and China met in March to discuss controlling mobile radio frequencies along the border between the two countries so as to prevent any "unauthorized" transmissions. Meanwhile, China has newly installed a radiation detector, in addition to a regular metal detector, at the airport in the city of Dandong that borders North Korea, the person also said. It is not clear whether the alleged Chinese installation is to prevent any possible nuclear smuggling from North Korea.