Cuba: Comrades, Phone Home

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Cuba’s Communist government announced today that Cuban citizens will soon be allowed to buy cell phones and service, lifting a restriction that had created resentment among islanders with the dollars to pay for the luxury.

Until now, Cubans had to get a foreigner working or visiting their homeland to sign service contracts. The head offices of the ETECSA joint-venture telecommunications firm of the Havana government and Italy’s Italcom are usually crowded with Cubans bringing in foreign friends or relatives to subscribe for them and pay in hard currency.

Few ordinary Cubans, whose salaries average less than $20 a month, can afford the 110 Convertible Pesos (CUCs) ($137.50) to activate the service, or even the minimum 10 CUC prepaid time required each month to keep the account active. But growing numbers of Cubans earning hard currency in tourism or black-market enterprises and the estimated 10% of households getting dollar handouts from U.S. exiles have boosted domestic demand for cell phones.

While the legalization of cell phone use by Cubans is unlikely to have much immediate effect on the number of subscribers, it will be seen as a step by the new leadership of Raul Castro in removing meaningless or outdated curbs on individual freedoms.

—Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami