North Korea’s Koryolink cellphone network includes a “third” network for use by high officials, a surveillance system based on technology found outside the North, and sees surprisingly active internet usage patterns.

All this and more was revealed through an exclusive interview conducted by NK News with Ahmed El-Noamany, a former senior technical director of the network.

Shut down twice for national security reasons, North Koreans make calls three times longer with Koryolink than the average in other regional markets, use an intranet service to read the latest news and weather, and can even use their handsets to check commodities prices,