How GSM Cell Phones Came To
GSM smartphones are the most popular in the earth. Estimates suggest that the standard comprises some 80% of all mobile phones in use around the planet. And while GSM cell phones devices are a ubiquitous feature of first world countries, it is their presence in far less “civilized” places that best shows the reach and influence of modern communications.
Think about Somalia: a substantial, desert country on the eastern horn of Africa which for the past 20 years has been wracked simply by civil war and famine. Bombed out bullet riddled cities dot the barren landscape where for thousands of years, nomads have roamed the desert herding goats and camels across hundreds of miles from pastures in the wet season to promote in the dry season. Even practical measures of distance here do not abide by the metric or imperial standards used by the rest of the world.
Nomad measure distance by units referred to as a Gedi: the distance a browsing herd animal can travel in a single day, which changes every season based on the physical strength of each herd. Even working automobiles are hard to find here, not to mention something sophisticated as a GSM cellular phone. However the simple application of GSM cell phones, which we in the west have long taken for granted, has proven unbelievably practical to this nomadic lifestyle.
For generations, Somali herdsmen have followed an annual pattern. By the end of the year once the dry season comes, they migrate from the more fertile areas elsewhere in the country, across the desert, to coastal cities where they can sell their stock in the markets to traders from the Middle East and somewhere else. Keeping their animals in pens inside the cities while they arrange a sale is incredibly costly, as they must continue to feed and water their herd with stores provided for by nearby merchants at obscene prices. They have no option. However, GSM cell phones have allowed them to forego this course of action.
A Somali nomad, a man dressed in hand sewn clothes that he has likely worn for most of his life, carrying a staff in the traditional posture – horizontally over his shoulders, his arms resting atop – a man who sleeps using a mat of thatched grass under the stars, beside a fire he created himself, can now merely make a phone call and prepare the sale of his herd in advance. As opposed to lingering in the city for several days, expending what meager wealth he has on maintaining his herd there, hoping his sale can get back his losses and even turn a profit, he can now simply arrange to have a buyer all set for him as soon as he arrives. Such high technology might appear incredibly out of place in Somalia, but it’s application is properly suited to the needs of a nomad.
