Posts tagged Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications
Pyongyang denies GPS jamming
May 19th
North Korea denied on Friday that it played any part in a two and a half week long jamming of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals in the border area between North and South Korea.
The denial was carried in several state media outlets and said allegations that the DPRK was behind the jamming were part of “a new farce and smear campaign.”
The jamming took place between April 28 and May 14 and resulted in several hundred civilian aircraft and ships experiencing disruption to their navigation systems, according to reports. It made GPS signals unavailable or unreliable but didn’t result in any serious accidents. South Korean More >
DPRK radio transmitters a national secret
Apr 25th
When North Korea launched a modernization of its broadcasting network in 2011, the Chinese company chosen to supply new TV and radio transmitters to the country faced a problem.
The location of broadcast towers in North Korea is so much of a state secret that engineers from the company weren’t permitted to travel to the DPRK to help install the transmitters, the company, Beijing BBEF Science and Technology, said on its website.
Instead, eight North Korean engineers spent a month in China being trained on how to install and operate the devices, which included a medium-power TV transmitter, several shortwave radio transmitters and a powerful More >
Koryolink hits a million subscribers
Feb 3rd
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 company is operated by Cheo Technology, which is a joint venture between Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Media And Technology Holding (OTMT) and North Korea’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. OTMT holds a 75 percent stake and the North Korean government owns the remaining 25 percent.
Koryolink’s service has popularized cell More >
Koryolink surpasses 800,000 3G subscriptions
Nov 18th
North Korea’s nationwide 3G cellular network could miss an end-of-year target to have a million subscribers despite two successive quarters of record subscriber growth.
Koryolink added 142,000 subscriptions in the third quarter, beating the 131,000 subscriptions added in the previous three months, to end September with 809,000 users. That leaves it 191,000 subscribers short of hitting a million users — a 2011 target that had been talked about at the beginning of the year. Based on current subscriber growth it appears that Koryolink will come close to the million mark but — barring a surge of new sign-ups in the current quarter — More >
AP expands KRT video deal to high-def
Sep 30th
The Associated Press has signed a deal with North Korean state television that gives it exclusive rights to high-definition video of major news events in the country.
The deal comes as AP and its biggest competitor, Reuters, race to expand their access to North Korea ahead of the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth — an event that is expected to see large scale celebrations and events in Pyongyang around April 15.
The new deal lasts three years and makes London-based APTN (Associated Press Television News) “the only agency to transmit broadcast-quality HD pictures of key news events in North Korea,” More >
More details on Star Joint Venture
May 19th
A couple of new details about Star JV, the company now responsible for North Korea’s connection to the global Internet, came to light this week.
They were included in a report from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) about the reassignment of the country’s dot-kp domain to Star JV.
The report reveals the mission of the company and its president:
Proposed Sponsoring Organisation and Contacts
The proposed sponsoring organisation is Star Joint Venture Company, based in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The company is a joint venture between the Korean Post and Telecommunications Corporation, a governmental enterprise; and Loxley Pacific Company Limited. The More >
Dot KP domain assigned to Star
May 3rd
Control of North Korea’s dot-KP Internet top-level domain has been assigned to Star JV, the North Korean-Thai joint venture that’s behind the recent wiring of Pyongyang to the global Internet.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which administers country code domains, updated its database on Monday, May 2, to assign the KP domain to “Star Joint Venture Company.”
This means control for the KP domain now rests with Star JV. Star took control of North Korea’s Internet address space last year and has been building up the North Korean Internet.
Switch of control to Star doesn’t come as a surprise as the company started More >
