2/1/2015
Improved Internet Access, the Dream of Cubans in New Relations with U.S.
HAVANA – With one of the lowest rates of Internet use in the world, Cuba faces the huge challenge of improving its telecommunications to meet 21st-century standards, so its citizens can connect with the Web in a normal way and engage in activities that are perfectly ordinary in many other parts of the world.
Cubans hope the new detente with the United States, which has promised to facilitate access to online infrastructure in order to improve Internet availability, will help cure the island’s technological backwardness.
“I hope these changes mean we can freely enjoy the Internet...I have access at the university but not at home,” Ariel, a student of German philology, told Efe.
Access to the Internet at home is restricted in Cuba to a few professionals like journalists, doctors, artists and lawyers – if they have government authorization – while everybody else may connect at official “cyber points” that do not have global access, only to a national intranet where some pages are restricted.
Connecting at these cyber points or in some hotels through the intranet costs $4.50 per hour, a rate far too high in a country where the average monthly salary is between $20-$30.
“I have a little boy and I can’t afford to go online for $4.50 an hour,” Alicia, a medical student, said, acknowledging that she finds it next to impossible to access documents and data that would allow her to complement her studies.
As part of the U.S-Cuba accord to renew diplomatic relations, measures approved by the White House went into effect last Jan. 16 to ease the economic embargo on the island, which included a plan to facilitate access to software and other equipment to widen Internet access and bring down costs.
The improvement of telecommunications is one of Washington’s new policies toward the island, whose purpose is to provide Cubans with more access to information so they can “make their own decisions.”
Despite the obstacles, Cubans up to now have devised ways to enjoy online audiovisual content like movies, series and games by means of the so-called “weekly package,” an offer available from a digital support system sold clandestinely for the affordable price of around 20 cents for four gigabytes of entertainment.
source
Improved Internet Access, the Dream of Cubans in New Relations with U.S.
HAVANA – With one of the lowest rates of Internet use in the world, Cuba faces the huge challenge of improving its telecommunications to meet 21st-century standards, so its citizens can connect with the Web in a normal way and engage in activities that are perfectly ordinary in many other parts of the world.Cubans hope the new detente with the United States, which has promised to facilitate access to online infrastructure in order to improve Internet availability, will help cure the island’s technological backwardness.
“I hope these changes mean we can freely enjoy the Internet...I have access at the university but not at home,” Ariel, a student of German philology, told Efe.
Access to the Internet at home is restricted in Cuba to a few professionals like journalists, doctors, artists and lawyers – if they have government authorization – while everybody else may connect at official “cyber points” that do not have global access, only to a national intranet where some pages are restricted.
Connecting at these cyber points or in some hotels through the intranet costs $4.50 per hour, a rate far too high in a country where the average monthly salary is between $20-$30.
“I have a little boy and I can’t afford to go online for $4.50 an hour,” Alicia, a medical student, said, acknowledging that she finds it next to impossible to access documents and data that would allow her to complement her studies.
As part of the U.S-Cuba accord to renew diplomatic relations, measures approved by the White House went into effect last Jan. 16 to ease the economic embargo on the island, which included a plan to facilitate access to software and other equipment to widen Internet access and bring down costs.
The improvement of telecommunications is one of Washington’s new policies toward the island, whose purpose is to provide Cubans with more access to information so they can “make their own decisions.”
Despite the obstacles, Cubans up to now have devised ways to enjoy online audiovisual content like movies, series and games by means of the so-called “weekly package,” an offer available from a digital support system sold clandestinely for the affordable price of around 20 cents for four gigabytes of entertainment.
source
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