Cell phones to link 180 rural Mongolian communities by year-end
Wednesday, 09 May 2007
Mongolia Web News, Ulaanbaatar. A Mongolian herder is 80 kilometers
from his home when his cell phone rings and he hears his children demand
that the herder resolve an argument they are having at home. Or a herder
is tired and will spend the night with his herd, so he calls home so
no one will worry.
This is the reality being created
by South Korea’s G-Mobile telephones. Having won a government tender
last year to establish phone service to connect rural Mongolians with
the country’s main telephone grid, the company has begun building
its cellular infrastructure.
Starting work about two weeks
ago, the company plans to link 180 rural communities and settlements
by cellular phone by the end of the year. The company hopes to have
every rural settlement equipped with cellular phones by 2009.
All G-Mobile telephones will
be manufactured in South Korea. The rural cellular phones will be set
for use in Mongolian language sets. The code for dialing rural Mongolia
will be 98.
There are currently 135,000
Mongolian cellular subscribers using G-Mobile’s competitor in CDMA networks, Korean-invested
Skytel. Meanwhile the newly established Unitel and market leader Mobicom are in a tough fight over the GSM market, with people lining up at the Unitel offices to purchase their low priced services.
CORRECTION: From the above reported on May 9 it might be understood that G-Mobile
Telephones is a South Korean Company. The technology and equipment is indeed South Korean, but the company is, in fact, based in
Ulaanbaatar.
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