Nearly all North Koreans now live in an area with cellular network coverage, a new report shows, following years of state efforts to promote mobile devices as a means to more tightly control the population.
Two decades since the introduction of mobile telecommunications in Pyongyang and Rason, mobile phone usage has become “ubiquitous” in the isolated country and forms the basis for its private economy, according to 38 North.
Nearly all North Koreans now live in an area with cellular network coverage, a new report shows, following years of state efforts to promote mobile devices as a means to more tightly control the population.
Two decades since the introduction of mobile telecommunications in Pyongyang and Rason, mobile phone usage has become “ubiquitous” in the isolated country and forms the basis for its private economy, according to 38 North.
Shreyas Reddy is a correspondent at NK News, based in Seoul. He previously worked as a researcher at BBC Monitoring, where his work focused on news and key people and organizations from the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Follow him on Twitter @shreyas_k_reddy.
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