Tamir Shakirov and Liliya Zhirnova
Imagine giving a young person today a telephone from 1991.
They would recognize it as a telephone.
But they would probably wonder what else it was supposed to do.
It could make calls.
That was more or less the point.
The device in their pocket today is something entirely different.
It is a telephone, camera, map, clock, calculator, music player, television screen, reading device, information source, communication tool and, increasingly, a gateway to financial and commercial services.
The transformation from the fixed telephone to the smartphone may be the single clearest example of how technology has changed ordinary life in Turkmenistan.
At independence, telecommunications were overwhelmingly based on fixed-line systems. Communication over distance meant making a telephone call, sending a letter or travelling to meet someone.
Mobile communication changed that equation.
Turkmenistan introduced cellular communication and gradually moved through successive generations of mobile technology. The country’s Altyn Asyr operator introduced 3G in 2010, and LTE/4G technology was launched in Ashgabat and Türkmenbaşy in 2012.
That chronology matters because it shows how quickly something that did not exist as part of ordinary life became infrastructure.
Today, mobile connectivity is no longer a novelty.
DataReportal, using GSMA Intelligence data, estimated 5.24 million cellular mobile connections in Turkmenistan at the end of 2025, equivalent to about 68.5 percent of the population. It also estimated that about 80 percent of mobile connections could be regarded as broadband connections.
The precise number of connections should not be confused with the number of people using mobile phones, because individuals can have more than one connection.
But the broader message is unmistakable.
Mobile communication has become part of everyday infrastructure.
And the smartphone has changed what “being in touch” means.
A person no longer needs to be at home to make a call.
A photograph can be taken and shared immediately.
A message can cross the country in seconds.
A person travelling can use a phone as a map.
Music can be carried in a pocket.
A businessperson can communicate with customers while away from the office.
A student can search for information without going to a library.
Even the ordinary act of waiting has changed. People read, listen, watch or communicate while waiting for a bus, sitting in a café or travelling.
The device has therefore changed not only communication but time itself.
There is also an important generational dimension.
For someone who grew up in the 1990s, the transition from fixed telephone to mobile phone was a technological change.
For a person born into the smartphone era, mobile connectivity is simply normal.
That difference tells us how quickly technological expectations can change.
The phone has also become part of the consumer economy. Turkmenistan’s domestic telecommunications ecosystem now includes mobile payment and mobile television services, among others. The TM Cell platform, for example, allows subscribers to replenish accounts through an application linked to a bank card, while 4G connectivity supports mobile television services.
These may appear to be small conveniences.
But quality of life is often made up precisely of such conveniences.
The ability to contact somebody immediately.
The ability to find information without travelling.
The ability to photograph something instead of describing it.
The ability to carry dozens of useful tools in one small device.
None of these is a spectacular achievement in isolation.
Together, they represent a fundamental change in how people experience the world.
Thirty-five years ago, a telephone connected you to another person.
Today, a smartphone can connect you to people, information, services, entertainment and places.
The telephone has become a window.
And the window fits in a pocket. /// nCa, 15 September 2026