- Wednesday, 25 November 2009
- INQ Mobile
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Americans generally do the right thing, after first exhausting all the available alternatives - Winston Spencer Churchill
Cuba should expand cellular network
SO RAUL Castro is easing restrictions on the sale of DVDs and computers in Cuba. The obvious next move is to open up its cellular networks to the local people.
It's currently estimated that out of Cuba's population of 11 million, only 0.2 per cent have access to the cellular network. In effect, most of those are government officials.
Yet the country's cellular operator - Teléfonos Celulares de Cuba (Cubacel), operates a 900 MHz GSM network which has got pretty good national coverage for all the places tourists might want to visit.
The Inq's efforts to discover who sold the Cubans their GSM gear proved fruitless. Ericsson sold them their previous AMPS and TDMA gear.
Given that the US employs a economic embargo on Cuba, you'd expect the handsets on sale to be supplied by another supposed communist power such as China.
But, oh no. The vast majority of the models on the Cubacel site are supplied by Motorola with just one upcoming Nokia. So it's a market ripe for exploitation – just what the handset vendors want.
There's economic sense in opening up Cuba's cellular network since experience in developing markets shows they increase trade. Fishermen, for example, land their fish at whichever port has the strongest demand for that day's catch.
Reports always highlight how little the average Cuban earns but then GSM handsets which cost $20-$30 have now come into existence.
Curiously it's TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) – rather than the likes of Telefonica/O2 – which stands the best chance of opening up Cuba. Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba (Etecsa) which owns Cubacel is in turn part owned by Telecom Italia.
And, as the INQ has pointed out before, if North Korea can build a W-CDMA network, then why can't another communist state like Cuba? After all, the cellular industry virtually invented the concept of the 'walled garden' where only very restricted bits of the mobile web are accessible. µ
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Cuban cellphone policy is as follows. Regular Cuban citizens are not allowed to open a cellphone line themselves. I don't know why. However, foreigners are allowed to take out 2 (or maybe it's 3) lines and then authorise Cuban nationals to use them. I have personally taken out a line for my boyfriend and one for his brother. 

You go to the Cubatel office and stand in a long line. When it's your turn you go in, give them your passport and they take a copy of it and enter you in the computer. They fill in some papers with your info and with the info, including the Cuban ID card, of the Cuban to whom you are giving the line. It costs about 120 USD. And that's it. You get a sim card and go pick out your phone. 

I bought a phone in Europe that is not locked to any provider so it is just a matter of sticking in the sim card and now he has a sony-ericsson with 512MB memory stick, MP3 player, video player, Polyphonic ringtones, etc.

The cell lines are all cash cards and you can load10 cuc or 20 cuc. This kind of money is hard to come by in Cuba so many people have a phone but rarely have credit on it.

Obviously this means it's hard for Cubans with no foreign contacts to get a cell phone, but you see them surprisingly often these days, at least in Havana.

As for coverage, there are places in "el campo" as Cubans would say, where you don't get coverage, but if you're in the cities you have no problems.
11 million is .2 percent of the Cuban population? That must be one large island.