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Call Me, Comrade: The Surprise Rise of North Korean Smartphones (nknews.org)
Tia Han, reporting for NK News: 2018 marks the tenth year that cellphones have been legally available in North Korea. The number of users has been growing significantly since then, but overall use remains low: according to the country's state-run Sogwang outlet in January, more than 3.5 million -- out of a population of 25 million -- have mobile subscriptions. "We started providing the 3G service in December 2008, so this year marks the 10th year of the service," Han Jong Nye, from the Arirang Information and Technology Center in Future Scientist Street in Pyongyang, was quoted as having said in Sogwang in January. "The demand for mobile phones is growing larger and larger."
[...] North Korean mobile users cannot access the worldwide internet, of course: use is limited to the country's state-run intranet. Reports suggest various kinds of applications are now accessible for mobile users -- from games to shopping -- several state-run North Korean outlets have reported on their recent technological development, often with a great deal of emphasis on their local origins. State media suggests that North Koreans are playing games, reading books, listening to music, doing karaoke, learning to cook, and even increasing crop output on their smartphones.
[...] Since the majority of smartphone users do not have an access to the internet, according to one expert, users have to go to a technology service center where technicians install apps to their cell phone. "Most mobile users do not have data service even if they buy a smartphone, so they have to be happy with pre-loaded apps such as games and dictionaries," Yonho Kim, a non-resident fellow at Korea Economic Institute, told NK News.
[...] North Korean mobile users cannot access the worldwide internet, of course: use is limited to the country's state-run intranet. Reports suggest various kinds of applications are now accessible for mobile users -- from games to shopping -- several state-run North Korean outlets have reported on their recent technological development, often with a great deal of emphasis on their local origins. State media suggests that North Koreans are playing games, reading books, listening to music, doing karaoke, learning to cook, and even increasing crop output on their smartphones.
[...] Since the majority of smartphone users do not have an access to the internet, according to one expert, users have to go to a technology service center where technicians install apps to their cell phone. "Most mobile users do not have data service even if they buy a smartphone, so they have to be happy with pre-loaded apps such as games and dictionaries," Yonho Kim, a non-resident fellow at Korea Economic Institute, told NK News.
What better way to spread the word of the Great Leader than you have everyone in the country have a cell phone? As long a the government controls the content that can be accessed on it.
That almost happened to us. Back in the 1980s, the "network" you dialed into with your home computer was a corporate fiefdom. Prodigy, CompuServe, AOL, Delphi, GEnie. Each set up their own site with guides, forums, chatrooms, shopping, messaging, etc. and you paid them a monthly subscription to be able to access it. Communication between them was initially impossible, and accessing a different service's site required paying their subscription fee. MSN was Microsoft's attempt to set up a similar subscription service (done in conjunction with NBC, hence MSNBC).
Those of us in schools, the military, and certain tech companies knew there was a bigger, better way to network things. And we began informing regular lay persons about it. Gradually the services started to allow email between the services, and a few even gave access to some select Usenet newsgroups. People slowly began to realize that there was actually another thing out there called the Internet which could connect everything together. Instead of being stuck with only the guides, forums, and sites you were subscribed to, you could access everything that anybody in the world made. And they began to demand being able to access everything. Finally in 1994, Bill Gates threw in the towel and added a TCP/IP stack to Windows 95 (before, you had to download and set it up yourself using something like Trumpet Winsock - a feat beyond the technical capabilities of most users). Which coupled with the HTTP protocol (websites) gave birth to the Internet the way most people use it today.
We fought hard to inform the public that the Internet existed, and for direct access to it. That's why it horrifies us that many people are taking that freedom we fought and bled for, and willingly giving it up to return to the AOL-like walled gardens of Facebook and iOS, where the company controls everything you can see and do. Don't take your freedom of choice for granted, and throw it away so blithely.
Leash, Tracking Device AND a Bug!
If cellphones didn't exist Dictators would have to invent them.
Imagine not having a cell phone, or access to much of any technology created in the last 30 decades or so...
Then one day, north and south are reunified... and you've got electric cars driving through north korea, 3g cell phones with no data replaced by the latest and greatest iphone... the sudden shift from impossible to common place...
It is easy to imagine... I drove through West Virginia a few months ago.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
will listen in. CIA will phone NK nuclear scientists with offers of cash.
Offers of cash? How's that going to work in NK where there is nothing to buy?
I have been there. There are plenty of markets and shops where you can buy almost anything you want, from designer handbags to Power Wheels type toy cars. Chinese brands are more common, but goods from Japan and other Asian countries were also available.
But anyway being a nuclear scientist in North Korea is a pretty sweet gig. They have a high status, are treated like national heroes, and provided with the best the country has to offer. Leaving for another country where they will be treated like an alien not be able to speak the language doesn't seem very appealing to me, regardless of how much money is thrown around.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
You can get smartphones down to the $30 range here in the US. They're not great but in emerging markets (like some regions of Africa) the price is well below that. And a lot of that is presumably profit because they're mass-produced commodities. Yes, that's expense for NK. There are so few citizens that just creating a nationwide network for government use would be a fixed cost and any usage fees for anyone else would basically be pure profit since it's a sunk cost they would have spent anyway.