• North Korea Loosens Cell Phone Restrictions For Visiting Foreigners
    16 replies, posted
[QUOTE]article: [url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/21/north-korea-cell-phone_n_2518006.html[/url] North Korea is loosening some restrictions on foreign cellphones by allowing visitors to bring their own phones into the country. However, security regulations still prohibit mobile phone calls between foreigners and locals. For years, North Korea required visitors to relinquish foreign cellphones at the border until their departure, leaving many tourists without an easy way to communicate with the outside world. The ritual of handing over phones was part of an exhaustive security check that most visitors face at immigration in North Korea. Many foreigners — including Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, who traveled to North Korea earlier this month — choose to leave their phones behind in Beijing before flying to Pyongyang. Now, foreigners can bring wideband, WCDMA-compatible mobile phones into the country or rent a local handset at the airport, and purchase a local SIM card for use in North Korea. The SIM card allows them to call most foreign countries, foreign embassies in Pyongyang and international hotels in the North Korean capital, according to Ryom Kum Dan of 3G cellphone service provider Koryolink. Cellphones rent for about $3.50 per day and SIM cards cost about $67, she said Monday. Satellite phones are prohibited, she said. However, foreigners will not be able to communicate by mobile phone with local North Koreans, whose cellphones operate on a separate network, and they will not have access to the Internet using locally provided SIM cards. They can phone Japan and the United States, but not South Korea. Cellphone use has multiplied in North Korea since Egyptian telecommunications firm Orascom built a 3G network in North Korea four years ago. More than a million people are using cellphones in the country, according to Orascom Telecom Media and Technology, which runs Koryolink as part of a joint venture with North Korea's telecommunications ministry called CHEO Technology JV Co. The 3G network also provides North Koreans with access to the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper for a fee, but not to the global Internet. On Friday, Koryolink saleswomen were setting up cellphone rental booths at Pyongyang's Sunan airport. One poster depicting a woman in a traditional Korean dress with a cellphone pressed to her ear read, "Here You Can Buy Koryolink Visitor Line." During his recent four-day trip to North Korea, Schmidt urged North Korea to provide its people with better access to the global Internet. The Google executive chairman noted that it would be "very easy" for North Korea to offer Internet on the 3G cellphone network. "As the world becomes increasingly connected, the North Korean decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world and their economic growth. It will make it harder for them to catch up economically," he wrote in a Google blog entry posted Sunday. "It is their choice now, and in my view, it's time for them to start, or they will remain behind." [/QUOTE] Wow! Wonderful! We get to use our phones. Wow. What a great leap forward. Come on, Kim.
[QUOTE=genobalto;39308710]Wow! Wonderful! We get to use our phones. Wow. What a great leap forward. Come on, Kim.[/QUOTE] You can't force rapid change on a country like this, otherwise it will go down the shitter. This gradually getting a little better over time thing seems good to me.
[QUOTE=Jetblack357;39308798]You can't force rapid change on a country like this, otherwise it will go down the shitter. This gradually getting a little better over time thing seems good to me.[/QUOTE] It would create the discoverygc forums in real life, you'd be home Jetblack!
[QUOTE=genobalto;39308710]Wow! Wonderful! We get to use our phones. Wow. What a great leap forward. Come on, Kim.[/QUOTE]Oh please, would you rather them do nothing at all? This is a small step that will (hopefully) lead to big change not just for North Korea, but for the whole Korean peninsula, even though this only affects foreigners.
I'm surprised that mobile phones have gained such popularity in North Korea, I was under the impression that most dwellings were still without electricity.
I wasn't even aware you could visit North Korea, unless you were like a Chinese diplomat or something...
[QUOTE=Cheat_God;39309604]I wasn't even aware you could visit North Korea, unless you were like a Chinese diplomat or something...[/QUOTE] iirc you have to go through the chinese officials to visit.
Yeah NK recently opened itself up a tiny tiny bit, tours aren't as exclusive but still rare.
Every year, the crack in the door opens a little bit more.
[QUOTE=Anthracite;39309220]It would create the discoverygc forums in real life, you'd be home Jetblack![/QUOTE] That whole forum is a shithole.
i want to visit NK in its socialist state atleast once in my lifetime, it would be a great way to see life similar to the soviet union's (as i was born a couple years after its collapse)
This is pretty good of them, I've been reading a little bit about the telecommunications in North Korea, there 3G network basically expands the whole country but their is no internet and that's their failure, though its going to be a while for NK to decide how they're going to push that out without using intranet a cool thing is though is that 1-2 million people in NK use cellphones daily and that's with calling and texting
Man Kim Jung un has done more good in a year than his father has in his entire life.
[QUOTE=raviool;39310116]i want to visit NK in its socialist state atleast once in my lifetime, it would be a great way to see life similar to the soviet union's (as i was born a couple years after its collapse)[/QUOTE] It's not at all Socialist or close to the Soviet system. Go to Cuba if you want to see a Socialist system.
[QUOTE=Jetblack357;39309949]That whole forum is a shithole.[/QUOTE] You should see the skype group conversations.
[QUOTE=raviool;39310116]i want to visit NK in its socialist state atleast once in my lifetime, it would be a great way to see life similar to the soviet union's (as i was born a couple years after its collapse)[/QUOTE] North Korea isn't socialist. It's fucked.
[QUOTE=Ogris;39311098]You should see the skype group conversations.[/QUOTE] I have, its a whole disgusting circlejerk of BS dicksuckery.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.