Raul Castro: Cubans Can Have Cell Phones

Ordinary Cubans, Not Just Those Holding Key Posts, Can Now Get Cell Phone Service

(AP)  President Raul Castro's government said Friday it is allowing cell phones for ordinary Cubans, a luxury previously reserved for those who worked for foreign firms or held key posts with the communist-run state.

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.

[gurusavant]

the infatuation with which such deluded, human abusing dictators are revered with is totally sickening. castro''s politics are no different from kim jongs. they both crush human lives to try and force the wealthy west to their knees. like our lifestyle is morally dapraved and we should look to them and see a model lifestyle to aspire to. now they have millions who are desperate and dangerously deluded. thanks boys.

[beehive21-2009]

Next ,text messaging,send us some cigars.

[kennedy7955]

Raul just announced that everyone will for the first time get a change of underwear. "You change with him, you with her, you kids over there..."

[iknowbest-2009]

In another 50 years, they''re all gonna get socks.

[hawksprings]

Definition of a Cuban Cell Phone: A pay phone in the cell block.

[trishab4]

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.

-what if they lose the ration card? do they go on hunger strike to get their cards reprinted? LOL!

Raoul, why don''t you leave your phone number? I got somethin'' to tell ya. It is two words. It starts with F and ends with U. Banana Idiot!

[hypnotoad72]

Meanwhile, India is getting blackberry devices, but is also against the notion of having their data encrypted. Splendid article on techrepublic.com and certainly more important, given our offshoring to that country, combined with their existing piracy rate.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=2130

[kennedy7955]

The new communist phone. 2 paper cups and a string and an idiot government minder trying to listen in...where will they get the cups and string I wonder?

[concorde5]

It''s time we end the pointless embargo against Cuba. It has done no good since it started and we are harming not only cubans but americans as well.

[eggy1620]

God help these people when that system finally collapses and their society is suddenly thrust into 1970.

[yongamerica]

There ya going, tell them they can but make it so expensive they can''t. Hey, its not the fearless leaders fault they don''t have cell phones.

[walt1944-2009]

In an unprecedented move, the new president of Cuba is allowing ordinary citizens to buy and use cell phones!

Such a move is unprecedented in Cuba in that it grants the average citien in Cuba a certain degree of privacy, which is a novelty concept in a totalitarian state

Is it possible that some sort of "Bill or Rights" might come next?

However, it should be noted that while the average Cuban can now own a cell phone (provided he/she could afford one!) it is very possible, in fact expected, that, as in the US(SA), every phone call will be documented and screened for every word that is said!

SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil (more of the same), McCain????