However, at 8 a.m. on Thursday, officials with the government telecom provider will for the first time offer internet access on their cellphones, a key step toward easing Cubans' technological isolation.
Approximately 5.3 million Cubans have cellphones, a little less than half the island's population, according to figures released by the government.
Until now, Cubans could only receive and send email on their phones using cellphone networks through government accounts. Offering mobile service could finally help meet the pent-up demand for video chatting, social media and even e-commerce.
Only 60,000 Cubans have internet access through a limited program that allows people to connect through DSL lines in their homes, according to government statistics. Many more people pack the 1,200 plazas, parks and other public areas across the island that have been outfitted with wireless routers, beginning in July 2015.
Access at the public WiFi hotspots costs the equivalent of $1 an hour and people complain of slow connection speeds and no privacy. The new mobile service was greeted with cautious optimism by many Cubans who have been told for years by their government that they would have 3G soon.
"I think it's great, I would like to use it to stay in touch with my daughters who live abroad but I don't know if I can afford it yet," said Nestor Rodriguez, who said he makes the equivalent of a few dollars a day selling fried pork rinds in Havana's winding colonial streets.
ETECSA, the Cuban government entity that maintains a monopoly on all telecommunications, said they would charge the equivalent of 10 cents a megabyte for the new service and released four plans Cubans can purchase. The cheapest plan costs about $7 for 600 megabytes of data, or more than one-tenth of what a highly paid doctor earns in a month.
The average state worker's monthly salary is about $30, according to government statistics, making the new 3G unaffordable for those who don't have relatives that send them remittances from abroad or work in the island's small private sector.
Still, the Cuban government said the new service showed a desire to modernize and open ever so slightly a country with some of the most restricted internet in the world.
"We keep advancing in the informatization of the society," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a tweet Tuesday, the same day of the announcement.
But other Cubans were more skeptical of the opening, saying tests this year of the new 3G service caused the network to grind to a halt and crash.
"They have been talking about this for a long time," said Elmer, who runs a small cafeteria from a window from his home and asked that his last name not be used. "You need to wait and see if it actually works before giving them your money."
For all its purported strides in health care and education, communist Cuba's level of internet connectivity was among the lowest in the world.
Critics have long complained that Cuban officials want to keep technology -- and the open flow of information -- out of their citizens' hands. The government blamed the US trade embargo for the internet drought.
Cuba made the internet more accessible as part of the December 2014 agreement to begin normalizing relations with the US after more than a half century of estrangement.
No comments:
Post a Comment