North Korea may prove new market for nicked phones

NEWS HAS just leaked out that Eygpt's Orascom has secured a 25 year licence (four years exclusively) to build a GSM network to cover North Korea.

It expects to cover the capital, Pyongyang, and other major cities within the first year. That shouldn't be difficult given that the North Korean PTT had built a GSM network to cover the capital back in 2003 as the INQ previously reported.

What happens when you build a GSM network in an economically-challenged country, though? As a Reliance insider recently told the INQ, there's a huge demand for old handsets in India. Even ones that offer only black and white operation. Normally when coverage arrives, the locals receive supplies of old handsets from friends and relatives. But thanks to a decision made by the US government, South Korea couldn't build a CDMAone network in the North.

Thus, their old Cdmaone handsets won't be of any use. Ergo, somebody will step in and start smuggling GSM handsets into the North. As the trade will be illegal anyway, who will care if the handsets are stolen? Voila, a market of 23 million people opens up for nicked phones.

It will be a safe bet to assume that if the North Korean government allows any WAP access at all, it will be to sites of its own creation. A new opportunity for WAP site designers, perhaps? But text messaging will probably be allowed, although messages from external networks can easily be blocked.

The interesting bit is, do the North Koreans realise the power that text messaging holds? In countries like the Philippines, text messaging has already been used as an effective way to organise protests.

North Korea might have bitten off more than it can chew with its new mobile network. µ

See Also
North Korea goes GSM
Unholy row breaks out in US over CDMA phones