A DIY Cellular Network: Could This Work in North Korea?

[A]n open-source project called OpenBTS is proving that almost anyone can cheaply run a network with parts from a home- ­supply or auto-supply store. Cell-phone users within such a network can place calls to each other and–if the network is connected to the Internet–to people anywhere in the world.

The project’s cofounder, David Burgess, hopes that OpenBTS will mean easier and cheaper access to cellular service in remote parts of the world, including hard-to-reach locations like oil rigs and poor areas without much infrastructure. [link]

Does anyone out there have enough technological knowledge to tell me what it would take to adapt this idea to North Korea?

7 Responses

  1. Wouldn’t be difficult at all. Might cost a little, but would be much cheaper than a traditional mobile network. The most expense would be in establishing Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) networks on the areas where you would want to provide coverage. You would need the WISP to connect to the internet. To connect cities within norK you would need to either tap into the existing (assuming there is one) copper wire network or set up a long-haul microwave network. The infrastructure would pretty much be the same as any existing cellular networks with the only major difference being the base-stations. The BTS typically are the most expensive part of the network.

  2. It would be doable if the North Korean government agreed to allow the deployment of such a network. But with their inevitable opposition it would be impossible. These stations would be easy enough to track down with a variant of the detectors they use to find cell phones on the border. Even if this weren’t the case there are extensive technical challenges that would be very difficult to overcome, impossible really if there’s vigorous efforts by the state to undermine such a project.

  3. Besides the obvious danger of having to use them in a place where there’s an open line of sight with the sky, what’s wrong with satellite phones? I realize they’re expensive for each unit to be purchased and then run, but it would seem a worthy goal for donors to put these in the hands of a few select people to facilitate two-way information.

    Didn’t someone here suggest that recently?

  4. Already on the ground meaning there are already satellite phones in people’s hands and being used?

    If so, how many people have them? How are their operating costs covered? Are the operating costs more expensive than regular cell service (the people along the border piggyback on Chinese service, which I assume is cheap)? Does the line-of-sight connection with the sky make the users vulnerable?

  5. Call me paranoid, but i really don’t wanna go into it on the comments section here.

    It’s good news, either way, since it looks like the only way as it stands to break through what is becoming a perennial information gap; that between the border regions and the interior.

    So it was nice work to find a cheap satellite phone. $235 is chump change, really, innit. In addition, rather like the notion of petitioning Steve Jobs to make a charitable donation of 100,000 i-pods for getting news and info into NK, i would imagine that satellite phone companies could be cajoled into generosity, if they could be made to see the benefit of the “We brought down the Kim regime” marketing hook five to ten years down the track.