Sources recently returned from North Korea said the communist authorities are expected to lift the ban on the use of mobile phones early next year.
The reclusive state has banned the use of mobile phones since May 2004 and have confiscated some 20,000 handsets, mostly from government officials and business people.
North Korea's state security agency believed that the deadly train blast in Ryongchon in April 2004 was a botched attempt to harm Kim Jong-Il, and that a mobile phone was used to spark the explosion. It also believed cell phone calls leaked news of the massive explosion.
"North Korea is likely to lift the ban and return the confiscated handsets on the occasion of Kim Jong-Il's birthday on Feb. 16 or his late father Kim Il-Sung's April 15 birthday," said a source who recently returned from a business trip to North Korea.
Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon asked North Korean Post and Telecommunications Minister Ryu Yong-Sop last August to revoke a ban on mobile phone use in the country.
During his visit to Pyongyang, the Thai diplomatic chief expressed hope that the ban would lifted by the end of this year, according to diplomatic sources.
Thailand's Loxley Public, through the joint venture, signed a 30-year contract to operate telephone and telecommunication networks in North Korea in 1995. It provides basic phone lines to about 8,000 clients in North Korea's Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone.
North Korean officials and merchants conducting business along the border with China and Russia are also anxious to get their mobile phones back, the source said. Cell phones have become essential to North Korean officials and merchants.
"The use of cell phones is a major source of unease in North Korea as it spreads information about the outside world,” the source said. “But the North Korean authorities have come to understand the need of mobile phone in building up the country's technology infrastructure,” he said.
North Korea recently agreed with VK Corp., a South Korean mobile handset maker, to jointly develop Korean-language software for mobile phones.
Instead of lifting the ban on the use of cell phones, North Korea will seek to regulate communications beyond the border via mobile phones, the source said.
North Korea is building frequency blocking-device installation along its borders with China and South Korea to prevent calls from being made to the outside world, according to other sources.
"Frequency blocking device installation operations are taking place in cities that share borders with China such as Shinuiju," the source said. "Mobile phone services will be resumed within the North after this construction is over," he said.
North Korea introduced mobile phone service in November 2002, with cell phones available from Motorola Corp. of the United States and Nokia Corp. of Finland. The number of cell phone users increased to more than 20,000 in 2003,according to Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper run by pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans in Japan.
The use of cell phones has helped pierce the North's Iron Curtain and break down the Pyongyang regime, which insulates itself by isolating its citizens and curbing the spread of information, South Korean intelligence officials said.
