Cell Phones, Internet Remain Rare On Island Stuck In The Past. HAVANA - - Orlando Matillo hit the refresh button and stared hopefully at the screen of his laptop personal computer. He had been attempting to connect to Facebook and talk with family overseas for more than an hour through one of the rare Wi- Fi networks available in Cuba.“This time, it will work,” he says as he maneuvered his keyboard once again. In Cuba, you have to have a little patience.” However, the screen remained unchanged. You’re not connected to a network,” it read.
During the more than half a century since Cuba came under Communist control, it has famously devolved into something of a museum piece displaying the accoutrements of life absent updating. It is a land of rusting vintage cars and crumbling architecture for lack of newer options, and a place of vivid material scarcity amid widespread economic dysfunction.
Get the latest world news from IBTimes India. Read international news, world breaking news from the Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe, Middle East & more.
In the realm of cyberspace, Cuba appears equally tethered to the past, as people struggle with primitive infrastructure in frequently futile efforts to interact with one another and the rest of the world. Cuba’s physical confines as an island nation have been reinforced by a stark digital divide: Most people cannot afford to go online for long, and the available infrastructure is severely limiting. Now, as the U. S. Cuba, some here hope they will finally be able to use the everyday technology such as cell phones and PCs that much of the developed world takes for granted.
For years, telecommunications giants such as AT& T Inc., Nokia Oyj and Verizon Communications Inc. Cuban market. But Web access remains both expensive and rare across the country even as Cubans are increasingly embracing smartphones, laptops, tablets and other devices designed for easily connecting to the internet. Many Cubans say they fear a 2. The Cuban government allows only certain professionals to have limited Internet access at home. They include some state workers, artists and academics. Everyone else can go online through state- owned Internet centers or at a handful of luxury hotels catering to foreign tourists.
VIP 2: Lalkar leaked online: Full movie download to affect Dhanush's film collection at box office. Watch moment elderly woman body-slammed and thrown into pool at Florida party Mobile phone footage emerges of shocking incident in North Lauderdale. 5 Tricks To Learn Spanish (Or Any Other Language) From 2 People Who Speak 11 Two polyglots discuss their shared love for the Spanish language and offer some tips for.
Online access generally costs about $5 an hour, more than most Cubans earn in a week. In all, barely 5 percent of Cuba’s 1. Uploading pictures, downloading files and watching videos on the Internet can take hours or days.“Cuba remains one of the world’s most repressive environments for the Internet and other information and communication technologies,” Freedom House, a civil- rights group based in Washington, concluded in a recent report.
There is practically no access to Internet applications other than email, given the slowness of the country’s connectivity and high prices, and most users are restricted to an intranet for obtaining information.”However, Cubans are increasingly poised to make use of widespread Internet access. Smartphones - - i. Phones, Blackberry handsets and Android devices - - have become more common in recent years, especially among millennials who largely use them to send text messages, make phone calls, play games and share music. In 2. 01. 1, about 1. Cubans, or around 1.
The trendy phones, laptops and tablets are generally brought to Cuba from “afuera,” or the outside, a term frequently used as a shorthand expression to explain a foreign connection. Some Cubans who travel regularly to other countries earn cash by purchasing used devices in Madrid, Miami, Ecuador’s Quito and other major cities to later resell in Cuba, while a lucky few receive old phones and PCs from relatives in the U. S. who have upgraded to newer models.
Those in the market for a smartphone generally must choose from a limited selection at a few dozen private outlets that have opened since the government began allowing Cubans to operate small businesses in 2. Movil Express, a phone vendor and repair shop in a bustling Havana business district, had only two models for sale on a recent afternoon. The LG phone cost $2.
Blu phone cost $1. Both were bargain- basement models, below the quality of phone given away for free with service contracts in the U. S.“People who buy these phones know they can’t really use them to go online, but they are the best you can get here, and everyone always want the best,” says Eduardo Riva, 2. Movil Express. “Most Cubans can’t afford these phones, but a relative sends them money from Miami, or they have a little extra cash in their pockets, and they know it’s an investment.”Movil Express, a phone vendor and repair shop in a bustling Havana business district, has only a few options for customers looking to upgrade. Photo: International Business Times/Cristina Silva‘The 2.
Century Has Left Us Behind’More Cubans are also becoming dependent on home PCs, even if they can’t use them to surf the Web, says Carlos Leyva, 5. They play games, create documents and print paperwork on Dells, Hewlett- Packards, Toshibas and other brands. More often than not, the PCs are less than 1. Cuba after previous owners in foreign countries purchased newer models. Leyva began his business more than four years ago after decades of working as a computer engineer for the Cuban government.
At first, he repaired about four PCs a week. Watch Dead Presidents Online Ibtimes on this page. As more Cubans acquired them and his business grew, he purchased a storefront on a main street in Camaguey, Cuba’s third most- populous city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site replete with colonial- style homes and churches. These days, his business employs three people and repairs about 2.
PCs a week, and he must often turn away potential new customers because he can’t meet the demand for his services. Most of the PCs that arrive at Leyva’s store have overheated after being exposed to Cuba’s scorching year- round climate in homes without air conditioning. In the U. S., people have computers and phones for a year or two before saying, ‘Oh, this doesn’t work. I need a new one.’ Here, we fix things and we make them last,” he says. Leyva has regular Internet access because of his wife, who is pursuing a doctorate in engineering. He spends about two hours a day online searching for the latest tech news.
He regularly enters Spanish- language tech chat rooms to ask for advice when he is stumped by one of his jobs. He purchases computer parts, tools and other equipment from a smuggler who travels frequently to Miami.“Right now, it feels like the 2. Century has left us behind. Even when you can get online, it’s so slow, you are there for hours waiting for the information to download. But we’ve been paying attention. People in my field are ready for Cuba to have Internet, whenever that day comes,” Leyva says. Cell Phones Still Rare.
Cuba’s youths are also impatiently waiting for their country to catch up with the rest of the world. Jessica Santos, 1. Samsung Galaxy 3 smartphone that her boyfriend in Florida brought her when he came to visit in February. She uses it to send text messages to friends, take pictures and listen to Celine Dion songs. The state- run phone company charges by the minute, so she keeps her phone conversations short. Her mother, a clerk for a federal judge, pays the bill. Cell phones here are for emergencies.
If you want to get in touch with someone, you walk to their house,” Santos says. Ivan Reince, 2. 4, got his first cell phone three years ago after landing a job as a construction worker. Cell phones are still rare enough in Cuba that “when you ask a girl out, you ask if she has phone first. Then you ask for the number,” he says.
He learned to type in school, where five PCs were shared by 2. He has been online only a few times over the past five years. Asked whether he had a Facebook account, he laughs and says, “But, do you think you’re in the United States?”If he could go online, he says, he would flirt with girls on Facebook, watch music videos featuring Chris Brown and Lil Wayne, and download movies whenever he wanted. You pay $5. 0 a month in the United States and it’s unlimited. Here, we pay for every phone call, every minute, every text message and still we don’t have Internet access,” he says.