The biggest Arab mobile phone operator says some six-thousand North Korean people have subscribed to cellular services.

Japanese broadcaster NHK quoted the head of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom as saying that the North Korean government recently gave ordinary people the right to use cell phones --- a right previously reserved for the Pyongyang elite.

Naguib Sawiris said the Egyptian telecom company launched business in the North after being invited by Pyongyang into its telecom market as a way to sharpen its competitiveness and to obtain foreign capital.