page_title: Telecommunications in North Korea
section_title: Telephone
hierarchical_section_title: Telecommunications in North Korea / Telephone
caption_attribution_description: Cyclist uses a cellphone in Hamhung
context_page_description: Telecommunications in North Korea refers to the communication services available in North Korea. North Korea has not fully adopted mainstream Internet technology due to its isolationist policies.
context_section_description: North Korea has an adequate telephone system, with 1.18 million fixed lines available in 2008. However, most phones are only installed for senior government officials. Someone wanting a phone installed must fill out a form indicating their rank, why he/she wants a phone, and how he/she will pay for it. Most of these are installed in government offices, collective farms, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with only perhaps 10 percent controlled by individuals or households.
  By 1970 automatic switching facilities were in use in Pyongyang, Sinŭiju, Hamhŭng, and Hyesan. A few public telephone booths were beginning to appear in Pyongyang around 1990. In the mid-1990s, an automated exchange system based on an E-10A
  system produced by Alcatel joint-venture factories in China was installed in Pyongyang. North Koreans announced in
  1997 that automated switching had replaced manual switching in Pyongyang and 70 other locales.
  North Korean press reported in 2000 that fiber-optic cable had been extended to the port of Nampho and that North Pyong'an Province had been connected with fiber-optic cable.
caption: Cyclist uses a mobile phone in Hamhung
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