Cuban government to give full net access to smartphone users
Cuba announced on Tuesday night that its citizens will be offered full internet access for mobile phones beginning this week, becoming one of the last nations to offer such service.
Mayra Arevich, president of the Cuban state telecom monopoly ETECSA, went on national television to say Cubans can begin contracting 3G service from Thursday.
Until now, Cubans have had access only to state-run email accounts on their phones.
The Cuban government has been building a 3G network in cities across the island and some tourists, Cuban government officials and foreign businesspeople have had access to it for several years.
The communist-governed island has one of the world’s lowest rates of internet use but that has been expanding rapidly since Presidents Barack Obama
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and Raul Castro declared detente in 2014. Expansion has not slowed with President Donald Trump’s partial rollback of relations.
Cuba authorised home internet in 2017 and hundreds of public Wi-Fi connection points have opened in parks and plazas around the country.
The new service will cost 10 cents per megabyte, with packages ranging from 600 megabytes for about $7 to four gigabytes for about $30. Those prices are roughly in line with global standards.
The Cuban internet is mostly uncensored, but the government blocks a small number of sites like the US-funded Radio and Television Marti networks.