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(LEAD) N.K. to lift mobile phone ban in April: Japanese daily
TOKYO, Feb. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea will partially lift a nationwide ban on the use of mobile phones this April, a Japanese daily reported Monday.
The measure will affect only Pyongyang, the North's capital, this time and gradually expand to cover other major cities in the communist country, the Tokyo Shimbun said, quoting an unnamed North Korean official in Beijing.
North Korea has prohibited its people from using mobile phones since a deadly explosion occurred at the Ryongchon train station near the North's border with China in April 2004. Debris of a mobile phone with adhesive tape attached to it was reportedly found at the scene of explosion, leading the authorities to impose the sudden ban in the belief that the mobile phone could have been used as a detonator.
In a related move, the North's official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported in January last year that the Korea Post and Telecommunication Corp. and Orascom Telecom Holding of Egypt agreed to cooperate on a long-term basis in the telecommunications field.
The KCNA, however, did not mention further details of the accord, but the easing of a mobile phone ban in Pyongyang looks to be following up on the agreement.
Orascom also said in a Jan. 30 press release that its subsidiary Cheo Technology was granted "the first commercial license to provide a mobile telephony service in December" in North Korea.
Cheo secured a 25-year license and will invest up to US$400 million in network infrastructure. The North Korean state company owns a 25 percent stake in Cheo, Orascom said.
Defectors say even if the ban is lifted, ordinary citizens are far from benefiting from the measure, as mobile phone handsets are too expensive to buy in the North.
Choi Yeong-cheol, 43, who defected from North Korea in 2006, said that senior party and administrative officials as well as trade workers were given mobile phones for free in 2002. "But ordinary people have not even dreamed of using a mobile phone because it cost them 170,000 North Korean won," Choi told Daily NK, a Seoul-based Internet newspaper. The figure of 170,000 won is big money considering the average monthly payment for ordinary North Korean workers is up to 3,000 won (US$1) now.
Wireless phone calls were available only in Pyongyang and other inland areas, the former defector added.
sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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