Now You Can Pay for a Cuban’s WiFi Use from Abroad
HAVANA TIMES — With home Internet service unavailable to Cubans and public WiFi hot spots prohibitive in cost for the average worker/professional, the State monopoly Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) announces that it will now allow people in other countries to pay for Cubans’ Internet use, reported Progreso Semanal.
At 10 CUC (11.50 USD) relatives and friends can facilitate five hours of a Cuban’s browsing or family communications with the outside world, notes ETECSA, which said the service takes effect on October 6 at the website http://www.ding.com/es/paises/caribe/cuba/nauta.
To receive the gift, the Cuban on the island must have a permanent Nauta account with ETECSA. Such accounts, available by contract, are valid for 330 days and can also be reactivated by depositing funds at any commercial ETECSA office.
To effect the payment, continues the note, you must enter the access data of the user’s account, for example, [email protected] or [email protected] as appropriate.
For more information, users can call 118 in all of Cuba.
IC, I think the real reason is they’re terrified, and rightfully so, of the internet. Dissemination of information, good, bad, radical and middle of the road isn’t exactly what the regime wants people to view. You can’t stop this IC and it will happen. Cuban’s are very smart people and they’ve already figured ways to watch netflix etc so it’s just a question of time. Yes, some will be arrested but this time, it won’t be as easy locking up the intellectuals and connectors to the cyber world. That will get out fast and furious and again it ain’t gonna be pretty. Castro and his hacks better understand that time is no longer on their side! That’s the major reason I want this fxxxing embargo lifted! You get enough geeks in Cuba and it will be a real freedom fest!
It’s simple. Give Cubans the freedom to decide for themselves.
Umm OK….so what can you “figure out” ?
And why would you need to pay for wifi use from outside of Cuba except for the fact that Cubans can’t afford wifi. Let’s be honest here, this is just another hard curency y collection device by the Cuban government …l
It was as early as 2009 that the Obama Administration allowed the American Telecommunication companies to do business in Cuba, but the Castro Oligarchy said NO!
THE ECONOMIST: Cuba and the internet – Wired, at last – Mar 3rd 2011
ACCORDING to government figures, only 3% of Cubans frequently use the internet, making the communist island the least connected place in the Americas. Those that do require patience: according to an industry survey, Cuba’s dial-up internet access is the world’s second-slowest, after Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. Under the guise of rationing the use of bandwidth, internet access is banned in most private homes and censored in offices. In 2009 Barack Obama authorised American companies to provide internet services to the island. But Cuba showed no interest in exploring the possibility. Instead it turned to its ally and benefactor, Venezuela.
http://www.economist.com/node/18285798
Guess the Castro Oligarchy did not like the idea of the Cuban people getting Free Wi-Fi offered by Google. They would have lost control of censoring as well as not made LOTS of money that the money the “gusanera” brings to Cuba via cellphone service payments etc.
NEWSWEEK:Top Cuban Official Rejects Nongovernment Wi-Fi Offerings – BY TAYLOR WOFFORD – 7/13/15
http://www.newsweek.com/top-cuban-official-rejects-google-wifi-offer-353087
The Castros can always figure out ways to access other people’s money. If they were only half as adept as earning their own money, life in Cuba would be very different.