North Korea allows mobile phone network

North Korea allows cellphone network
But at $300 a phone, and monthly costs, only elites can afford the Koryolink service from an Egyptian telecom firm. Many wonder what the regime’s motives are: to monitor citizens, or finally open up?Amid the vegetable vendors and lightly stocked department stores, there’s a new high-tech shop in low-tech Pyongyang, North Korea, selling a hot gadget the rest of the world already takes for granted.Egyptian telecom company Orascom Communication launched a mobile network in the North Korean capital called Koryolink in December, on a long shot that its service can succeed in one of the world’s poorest and most reclusive states.To read this report in The Los Angeles Times in full, see:
www.latimes.com/technology/la-fg-nkorea-cellphone22-2009mar22,0,5038328.story