Ordinary Cubans allowed cell phones
HAVANA (AP) - March 28, 2008 It was the first official announcement of the lifting of a major
restriction under the 76-year-old Castro, and marked the kind of
small freedom many on the island have been hoping he would embrace
since succeeding his older brother Fidel as president last month.
Some Cubans previously ineligible for cell phones had already
gotten them by having foreigners sign contracts in their names, but
mobile phones are not nearly as common in Cuba as elsewhere in
Latin America or the world.
Telecommunications monopoly Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de
Cuba S.A., or ETECSA said it would allow the general public to sign
prepaid contracts in Cuban Convertible Pesos, which are geared
toward tourists and foreigners and worth 24 times the regular pesos
Cuban state employees are paid in.
The decree was published in a small black box on page 2 of the
Communist Party newspaper Granma.
The government controls well over 90 percent of the economy and
while the communist system ensures most Cubans have free housing,
education and health care and receive ration cards that cover basic
food needs, the average monthly state salary is just 408 Cuban
pesos, a little less than $20.
A program in Convertible Pesos likely will ensure that cell
phone service will be too expensive for many Cubans, but ETECSA's
statement said doing so will allow it to improve telecommunication
systems using cable technology and eventually expand the services
it offers in regular pesos.
The statement promised further instructions in coming days about
how the new plan will be implemented, and there were no lines of
would-be customers mobbing ETECSA outlets as they opened for
business.
ETECSA is a mixed enterprise that operates with foreign capital
from the Italian communications firm Italcom.