Smartphone Apps are very important nowadays. In most Western countries, these Apps help in making our life a lot easier than before. The apps cover all sorts of things to assist us with transportation, taxis, ordering food, money transfers, maps, speaking to relatives and friends, social media and many other useful things.
When you travel anywhere in the world, these apps, especially ones like Google Maps, help you find your way to places which are unfamiliar to you, like a new city or a tourist attraction. These Apps as we all know need a connection to the Internet using 3G or 4G provided by telecommunication companies.
In Palestine, the situation is totally different. There are telecommunication companies in Palestine such as Jawwal and Al-Wataniya Mobile and these are fully Palestinian owned and operated. Beside these, there are also Israeli companies providing coverage in the space of Palestinian communications.
Being an occupied country means that you will be restricted in different respects and telecommunication is one of them. Therefore, Palestinian companies do not provide either 3G or 4G services to Palestinian customers as a result of an order imposed by the Israeli occupation preventing the required equipment for such services into Palestine.
When President Obama visited Ramallah in 2013, there were three large billboards erected with the following statement, “President Obama, don’t bring your Smartphone to Ramallah. You won’t have mobile access to the Internet. We don’t have 3G in Palestine.” This was a way to appeal to President Obama to put pressure on the Israeli government to allow Palestinians access to this service. Recently in September 2016, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Palestinian government and the Israeli government but there is still no 3G in Palestine to date.
As a result, unfortunately, you cannot totally enjoy these services in Palestine. There are some places where you can use your smart device Apps, but access is intermittent and not all Apps will be responsive. For instance, Google Maps app is not at all helpful in Palestine as Palestinian houses and buildings do not have street numbers like the ones in most Western countries. So how do you find an address in Palestine? The answer is simple – you ask a passerby or a driver or shop owner, and people will be more than happy to help you.
Additionally, Palestine does not have a transportation system like European countries where you know beforehand the exact time of arrival and departure of a train, tram, metro or buses. All taxis and minivans here work without a timetable or a system based on the Internet or even a phone app, for example. The taxi or minivan will arrive when it arrives. This is just the way it is in Palestine.
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