about 3 weeks ago - 1 comment
Koryolink, North Korea’s sole 3G cellular service provider, is close to hitting the 2 million subscriber mark. The news was disclosed this week by the Koryolink CEO Ezz Heikal in Pyongyang and later confirmed by the company’s head office in Cairo. It means that Koryolink will have roughly doubled its subscriber base in the last 15 months.…
about 1 month ago - 16 comments
Well, that didn’t last for long. Short-term tourists entering the DPRK can no longer get mobile Internet service, according to Koryo Tours. “3G access is no longer available for tourists to the DPRK. Sim cards can still be purchased to make international calls but no internet access is available,” the Beijing-based North Korean tourism specialist…
about 2 months ago - 8 comments
Ever since it became known last week that foreigners in Pyongyang would be able to get access to mobile Internet services through Koryolink, the big unanswered question has been ‘how much?’. We now know, thanks to a report from China’s Xinhua News Agency, and prospective users might not like the answer. The news agency said a…
about 2 months ago - 2 comments
Foreigners visiting North Korea should be able to get mobile data service on their cellphones within the coming week, according to a report on Friday. Koryolink, the country’s only 3G cellphone network, plans to allow visitors to buy mobile Internet when they arrive in the country, the AP said in a report from Pyongyang. The…
about 3 months ago - 1 comment
Over the weekend a series of stories from Pyongyang reported that visitors to North Korea can now buy SIM cards for the local Koryolink network so they can make international calls while in the country. Thanks to an update from Young Pioneer Tours, which was the first to report on the new service, we now…
about 3 months ago - No comments
The North Korean government is now allowing tourists to keep hold of their cell phones when they enter the country and buy SIM cards on the local network, according to a report by China’s Xinhua news agency. The report comes hours after Young Pioneer Tours said tourists on their most recent trip were able to…
about 3 months ago - 2 comments
Young Pioneer Tours, one of the handful of agencies taking tourists into North Korea, reports that a group just returned from the country were permitted by customs officials to take their cell phones into the country. The news is intriguing because North Korea has long taken phones from visitors as they cross the border. The…
about 7 months ago - No comments
The CEO of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT), which owns 75 percent of North Korea’s sole 3G cellular operator, is back in Pyongyang, according to KCNA. [Updated. See below] The North Korean news agency said Naguib Sawiris arrived on October 4 with four colleagues. It provided a couple of pictures of Sawiris and…
about 1 year ago - 12 comments
North Koreans have not been banned from using mobile phones during a mourning period for Kim Jong Il despite a press report to the contrary, according to the majority owner of North Korea’s nationwide cellular network. The U.K.’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on January 26th that the North Korean government had warned citizens they would be “branded as ‘war…
about 1 year ago - 15 comments
Koryolink, North Korea’s only commercial 3G cell phone network, has signed up its millionth subscriber. The landmark was reached just over three years since service was launched. Koryolink has been adding more than 100,000 new subscribers for each of the last five quarters and was expected to hit the million mark in early 2012. The…