Commemorative plaque in Havana for the first telephone conversation in Spanish, which occurred in that city on 31 October 1877. Photo: Yoani Sanchez
It weighs more than a "bad marriage," my grandmother used to say about that enormous black telephone in the neighbor's house. It had a very short cord and after making a call my index finger was covered with the dust from under the dial. Still, I waited anxiously for the shout that announced my mother was calling from her work or from some province. We went running up the stairs to glue our ears to the receiver and listen to what the almost metallic voice said on the other end. Among the more than ten families living in that tenement, only two had telephones. So any quarrel with the owners of this important gadget would leave you helpless, incommunicado.
If, in March of 2008, Raul Castro had imagined the role cell phones would play in Cuba's incipient civil society, he probably never would have authorized their use. Before that date, Cubans had to ask a foreigner to take out a cell phone contract and then allow them the use of the service. The desired SIM card could only be acquired by the same people who could enjoy the hotel rooms and car rentals, in short, by people who had not been born on this Island. Fortunately, this apartheid ended almost four years ago, and since that date more than 1.2 million users have contracted with Cubacel for prepaid service. This figure shouldn't please us, because we are still far behind the rest of the Latin American nations.
Despite the limitations of its high cost, low coverage area in many places in the country, and the temporary suspensions of service to "inconvenient" users, cell phones have changed our lives. At this time, the ability to send and receive text messages has strengthened contact between citizens, fostered the exchange of news, and given us the invaluable ability to post Twitter messages without Internet access. A few days ago the price of internal text messages was reduced by 44%, though we are still light years above the prices in effect in the rest of the world. If the objective of the country's only telephone company is to attract more customers and raise profits, they will also have to accept the collateral affect of the freeing up of information and communications that this will bring. Cubacel calculates the economic benefits, but it is incapable of realizing -- in its true potential -- the powerful social tool that we now carry in our pockets.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Translating Cuba is a new compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Yoani's new book in English, Havana Real, can be ordered here.
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THE ECONOMIST UK: Talk is cheap ! BUT NOT IN CUBA!- Jan 24th 2012,
CUBANS are not known for the brevity of their conversations. Unless, that is, they are speaking on a mobile phone. In a country where the average state salary languishes at around $20 a month, and daytime mobile charges are 45 cents a minute (paid by both the caller and the receiver), customers have a strong incentive to keep their conversations brief. Cubans have resorted to seeing their phones as mere fashion accessories.
But from February 1st, those who prefer to use their phone for its original purpose will be given some respite. The cost of using a the only network on the island (run by the state-owned ETECSA) is falling. For the first time, receiving calls from phones within Cuba will be free. The price of a text message is being almost halved.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2012/01/telecoms-cuba
Only recently has a cable been laid between Cuba and Venezuela, thus circumventing America's blockade/embargo. It will take time for cellphone and computer saturation to permeate the country, but it will happen.
Meanwhile, we will still have to tolerate the interminable whining and micro-criticisms of people like Sánchez.
The “ALBA-1” double fiber optic cable still doesn’t offer service to Internet and telephone users in Cuba. The date for activating the project has been put back several times, with the last missed benchmark being July.
Boris Moreno Cordoves, the vice minister of Communications & Informatics, now says that improved services could begin in September or October of this year.
The laying of the cable from Venezuela to Santiago de Cuba was completed in February.
Announcements have repeatedly been made concerning the implementation of a project that promises to multiply the speed of data, image and voice transmissions by 3,000 times the capacity that Cuba currently possesses.
Meanwhile, islanders have been waiting for the arrival of that moment with great expectations.
Internet users continue experiencing the same frustratingly slow and difficult access to the web (Cuba has one of the lowest connection rates in the hemisphere).
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=48196&cpage=1#comment-41807
THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR : An Old Man's Island - By George H. Wittman - 8.19.11
Despite some initial disagreement, there now seems to be a consensus around the figure of a minimum of $1.2 billion as the amount remitted yearly from Cuban Americans to their relatives in Cuba. Of this, the Cuban government assesses about 20 percent in various fees. If Cuban expatriates and their now adult children had not fled to the U.S. and elsewhere, the economy of Cuba would be in far worse shape than it is today. That's one of the many ironies of the Cuban Revolution
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/19/an-old-mans-island#