Let North Korean Phones Connect to the Sky

Let North Korean phones connect to the sky.

I was thinking about the problem of opening up information in North Korea, and I asked a very simple question.

Can't we just beam it from satellites?

At first it was closer to a joke. But when I checked today's technology, it was no longer only a joke. As of 2026, ordinary smartphones in the United States are communicating directly with low-Earth-orbit satellites — no satellite phone, no dish antenna. T-Mobile's T-Satellite uses Starlink's Direct to Cell satellites to provide not just text but data for applications like WhatsApp, and the company said that as of January 2026, more than 150,000 people were actually using the service each day.

T-Mobile +1

AST SpaceMobile is heading the same way. The company is building a satellite network with the goal of delivering 4G and 5G broadband directly to ordinary smartphones, and it launched next-generation BlueBird satellites in June and again in August 2026. It has disclosed a peak data rate of 98.9Mbps achieved through its satellites already in orbit.

AST SpaceMobile +1

This is not one company's exotic technology. 3GPP, which sets international mobile standards, included NTN — non-terrestrial networks — in the 5G system from Release 17 and integrated satellite access more deeply in Release 18. Put simply, the mobile industry itself is abandoning the premise that base stations must stand on the ground.

3GPP +1

Korea is not outside this current either. In July 2026 in Seoul, Skylo demonstrated D2D — an ordinary smartphone exchanging SOS messages directly with a satellite. It was not yet a licensed domestic service; the trial ran under a temporary permit. The government is pushing toward 6G commercialization around 2030, and has included building an independent low-Earth-orbit satellite network by 2035 among its national future-technology goals.

조선비즈 +2

Then the question must change. Why is the Republic of Korea not starting research on direct satellite communication for North Korean residents' information access — now? North Korean residents have practically no free internet. The North Korean government tightly controls all media and treats the use of unapproved phones, computers, TVs, and radios as illegal. Distributing foreign media can carry extreme punishments, and the regime even jams and cracks down on cross-border communication over Chinese mobile networks. Human Rights Watch assessed in its 2026 report that restrictions on information access and surveillance in North Korea remain severe.

Human Rights Watch +1

Until now, we have used the border to send information north. We broadcast radio waves, passed USB sticks, slipped in SD cards, used Chinese cell phones. The North Korean regime knows this too. So it seals the border, polices people, and jams the airwaves. But above the border, there is the sky. I want the Korean government to start a “Korean Peninsula Satellite Information Access Project” now. The name doesn't matter. What matters is the goal: not a covert operation to attack the North Korean system, but an open, civilian, humanitarian project to research technology that lets anyone on the peninsula reach outside information and communication when terrestrial networks are cut off.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea AeroSpace Administration can examine the technology and spectrum questions, while the Ministry of Unification and human-rights experts examine the risks that could fall on North Korean residents.

Companies like SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus, and Samsung Electronics can research NTN and D2D compatibility for ordinary smartphones. Satellite operators like Starlink, AST SpaceMobile, and Skylo can be asked for open feasibility studies on what technical conditions the peninsula would require.

Defectors and North Korea information experts must say, at the design stage, what residents actually need and what would endanger them.

And the first goal doesn't need to be grandiose. Form a public–private research team within 30 days, publish an open feasibility report covering technology, law, spectrum, and human-rights risk within 90 days, and within a year run an open demonstration of “Korean Peninsula information-access D2D” using ordinary smartphones on South Korean territory.

We have already run a satellite D2D demonstration in Seoul. The government has created an AI network alliance joined by 34 companies and institutions including SKT, KT, LG Uplus, and Samsung Electronics. 6G and satellite communication are already in the national strategy. It is not that we lack the technical ecosystem to build a new organization from scratch. We only need to add one new goal for the people already gathered.

코리아닷케이알 +1

One thing must be made clear here. This does not mean Korea can press a button today and connect every North Korean phone to the internet. Commercial Direct to Cell today generally relies on a carrier's spectrum and network cooperation. There are questions of North Korean handsets' frequencies, SIM and authentication systems, the North's jamming capability, international telecommunication regulations, and many legal issues. And the most important issue of all is the safety of North Korean residents. If a resident can be punished because of traces left by receiving outside information, that technology cannot be called a success.

So the goal of this project must not be merely “the signal reached the North.” Whether residents can access it without being endangered must itself be part of the technology.

Which is exactly why the research must start now. Not politicians scrambling to debate after the technology is finished — but carriers, satellite companies, standards experts, North Korea experts, and human-rights experts sitting at the same table while the technology is being built.

And the first service doesn't need to be political messaging either. It could be disaster information, or weather, or world news, or educational material — and in the long run, messages between families. What matters is not forcing information on anyone, but returning choice to people.

To be able to see if you want to see, to know if you want to know, to reach someone if you want to reach them. The internet has become so ordinary to us that we forget: access to information is enormous power.

The North Korean government has long kept that power by controlling the entrance to information. But the structure of communication networks itself is changing. In the past, sealing the border could block most of it. From now on, phones will talk directly to the satellites passing overhead.

Waiting until that change is complete to start thinking about how to use it on the peninsula is too late.

The Republic of Korea was the first country in the world to commercialize 5G, and it is now pushing 6G and low-Earth-orbit satellite communication as national strategy. Then there is no reason to aim merely at “faster communication.”

Connecting the most disconnected people in the world.

Is there any project that could prove Korea's satellite communication technology more powerfully than that?

I want the Ministry of Science and ICT to read this. I want the Korea AeroSpace Administration to read it. I want the Ministry of Unification to read it. I want SK Telecom and KT and LG Uplus to read it. I want a communications engineer at Samsung Electronics to read it.

I want someone working at Starlink, AST SpaceMobile, or Skylo to read it. I want North Korean human-rights organizations, communications researchers, and members of the National Assembly to read it too.

And I want someone to say: “Let's look into it.” That's where it starts.

One paper comes out, one demonstration begins, one company joins, one ministry attaches a budget — and imagination becomes a project. When a project becomes a standard and then a product, at some point even the meaning of the border we now take for granted can change.

We cannot remove the barbed wire today. We cannot erase the armistice line overnight. But no one can build barbed wire in the sky. And phones have already begun to talk to it. So let's prepare now — so that North Korean residents' phones can one day connect to the world through the sky. No — not one day. Starting today.