Highest percentage of 3G users in North Korea

February 14, 2011 07:00 PM

Of the 300,000 wireless users in North Korea, over 99.9% of users are connected to a 3G network, according to a report from researchers at TeleGeography.

This is the highest percentage rate of 3G subscribers as a percentage of total wireless subscribers globally.

Most 3G subscribers in North Korea use Egyptian-owned cellco’s CHEO Technology (Koryolink) which was launched back in December 2008 and has since become one of the most censored networks in the world. Users have access to SMS but the internet is severely restricted to a few official websites.

North Korea’s figures were closely followed by Japan’s, which have 94.6% of wireless users connected to 3G, and South Korea, which had 71.7% of users connected to 3G. The first country from outside the Asia-Pacific region to feature in the top 10 was Sweden which came sixth with 55.4% of users connected to 3G.

The US came 24th in the rankings with 31.4% of users connected to 3G, falling behind less mature markets such as Slovakia (48%), Australia (64.6%) and Taiwan (58.1%).