North Korea’s mobile phone users pay about 15 cents a month on average for a basic plan that includes 200 voice minutes, a news report said Tuesday, indicating relatively low prices for the service despite a soaring number of customers.

The number of subscribers of Koryolink, the sole telecom provider set up in 2008 as a joint venture with Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, has reportedly topped 2.4 million as of early September.

But its basic plan costs only 1,000 North Korean won, which is equivalent to around 15 cents or 160 South Korean won in the local black market, Washington-based Radio Free Asia reported, citing a North Korean source in the border regions.

“Subscribers pay 1,000 won every month and get 200 calling minutes,” the source was quoted as saying. “By off-the-books quotations, this is like a giveaway.”

The communist country pegged its won to the greenback at 100 during a currency reform in 2009, but a collapse of the local currency has since placed the system in tatters. Currently one dollar sells for 8,000 won on average, observers say.

For any extra usage, the subscribers would have to pay 80 yuan ($13.1) per 100 minutes, the source said, which prompts them to rather buy another phone under someone else’s name.

“The trend is emerging among North Korean merchants and traders,” the report noted.

Pyongyang is believed to have launched mobile phone services to facilitate the business of party executives, public security officers and other elite members of the reclusive society, which may explain the low callrates.

Today, North Koreans purchase a mobile phone and pay fees at Koryolink branches operating within the postal offices in Pyongyang and other provinces, the report said.

But the regime appears to be maintaining strict control over any flow of information within and across the country’s frontiers, regularly spying on phone calls made by officials and ordinary citizens.

North Korea, with a population of 24 million, introduced mobile phone services in Pyongyang in 2002. The service was temporarily banned after a deadly bombing at a train station in 2004 in a northern province.

During a reunion of separated families in February this year, many North Korean officials and reporters were seen owning a smartphone. The country in 2013 unveiled its indigenous smartphone, Arirang, apparently modeled on Chinese products.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)