North Korea Communications acquires base stations

The North Korea monitoring website 38 North has identified some one-thousand cellular base stations in North Korea through satellite imagery. It seems the mobile phone penetration rate of the reclusive North is rising fast. Who started the mobile communication service in the country and when?

Three years after North Korea reintroduced mobile communications service in 2008, Koryolink established 453 base stations nationwide, expanding its network coverage in 14 major cities including Pyongyang, 86 smaller cities and 22 highways. The network covered 13-point-six percent of the country's territory and 92 percent of the population.

But North Korea's mobile communications have limitations. North Korean authorities are using the mobile communication service as a means of controlling people. Using the service, the authorities could listen to the phone calls of people.

North Korea could finally be getting a long-overdue upgrade to its 3G cellular network. A report says the country has begun importing used 4G networking equipment from Huawei and will launch the new network in major cities. Huawei supplied the current 3G network.

Two decades ago this month, North Koreans in Pyongyang and Rason were the first in the nation to get a taste of cellular telephony. In a country where landline phones were still the exception rather than the rule, mobile communications had the potential to revolutionize the way people communicate.

Further, it said the North Korean government had launched its own cellular network to compete with Koryolink. Orascom is still involved in Koryolink and, in 2018, received a sanctions exemption from the United Nations to continue operating the network. Cellular Telephony Today