Visitors to North Korea now have another unusual observation to add to their list: they don’t have a shred of 3G data access during their trip.


While North Koreans struggle to access the global Internet, restricted instead to domestic content, foreign visitors and residents can pay for 3G access which affords them relatively unrestricted access to international pages. Now, though, the country’s mobile phone provider Koryolink has announced that’s been halted—at least for now.

“Unfortunately we are facing internet service outage from the local internet provider’s side with no estimated time, we will keep you posted once the service is back to normal,” wrote the company in a message seen by Reuters. It’s not clear why the service has been shut down, nor how long it will last. [Reuters via Engadget]


Image by NASA

