February 3, 2010 by davidfday

Koryolink Mobile Advertisement in North Korea

Koryolink, the North Korean subsidiary of Egypt-based Orascom, claims it now has 100,000 subscribers in its first year and looks to add several million more over the next 5 years.  The extent of this initial, pre-paid 3G subscriber feast north of the DMZ is indicative of powerful mobile access beyond the elite military leadership. Currently, Koryolink only provides domestic voice and text messaging with no international call or roaming service. There are some reports that mobile customers within metropolitan Pyongyang also have mobile internet service.

Reportedly, Pyongyang is now laying fiber-optic cables in various provinces as a key component of IT infrastructure development looking toward the government’s stated goal of a “mighty and prosperous nation” by 2012.

These IT developments in North Korea follow last month’s announcement that Americans would now be allowed into the country as tourists.

Interestingly, North Korea’s business development moves contrast with harsh statements against the South Korean government for participating in the U.S. disaster preparedness contingency plan in the event of a Regime implosion in the North. The business moves also come at a time when North Korea is facing even harsher UN sanctions as a consequence of the nuclear issue. The business moves certainly look like the Regime is beginning to face the inevitable “opening up” required to move towards a more prosperous system. That “opening up,” whether by 3G networks, fiber optic cables,  or American tourists wandering around the country, will place new and more stressful challenges on Pyongyang to maintain Regime stability and continuity. One only needs to look to the instability created within the former Soviet Union created by information about the prosperity and freedom of the outside world made more available to the population at large in the 1980?s as a result of American & Western tourists, fax and telephone.

Nicole Finneman
Formerly, Korea Economic Institute,
Washington, D.C

Hosted by David Day, this television program aired statewide in Hawaii and features, as its special guest, Ms. Nicole Finneman, formerly with the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C.  Ms. Finneman, an American eyewitness inside North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and other fascinating facilities and locations throughout the country, talks about those experiences.

The conversation turns from the Yongbyon visit to the potential business and commerce development in North Korea and references American firms now lining up to do business in North Korea in the future, including the Korean-American-owned, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (a private university).

Ms. Finneman talks about her visits to various commercial enterprises, the Koryolink mobile phone explosion in the country, and the market/commercial developments within the country. (Koryolink, a joint venture between the Egyptian company Orascom Telecom Holdings and the state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation, is North Korea’s only 3G mobile operator.)

Nicole also discusses  her visit to the digital libraries at Kim Il Sung University and their remarkable high tech facilities which many universities in the U.S. currently do not have…but only connected to an intranet–no internet.

Finally, Ms. Finneman and David Day talk about the infrastructure for commerce and foreign investment that is now being put into place in North Korea and her crystal-ball view of the potential for change in that country.