The Latin American Report # 513

The increase in prepaid mobile data service rates introduced last Friday by the Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA), along with other restrictions imposed for recharging mobile balances using the national currency, has been a clear own goal for the national authorities. The popular rejection has been humongous, with students leading a movement that is pressing for a return to the previous rates or a significant improvement in the position of all social actors under the new scheme. Executives from ETECSA announced last Monday that they had approved allowing university students to exceed the controversial limit imposed on national recharges once a month, but several student groups from major universities in the Cuban capital, such as the University of Havana and the Technological University of Havana, have demanded that this and other flexibility measures not be reduced for them. The technical and political dissection of the announced measures, which aim to financially rescue an indebted ETECSA and save its ailing infrastructure, has been overwhelmingly negative.

For years, the company relied on recharges from Cubans abroad as its main source of income—8 out of every 10 dollars, in a very vulnerable and debatable dynamic—but US sanctions, the national economic and financial architecture, and other organic practices of civil society, meant that part of the funds intended to recharge mobile balances on the island were credited but the dollars ended up being “hijacked” by third parties abroad. The same happened with remittances, which previously passed almost entirely through Cuban state institutions. How does this work? Very simply, when someone wants to send a remittance or top up a balance from abroad, there are independent services provided by third parties that retain that currency in their accounts abroad and transfer the equivalent values in national currency to the beneficiaries in Cuba with capital that they have available here. In the case of remittances, the sanction imposed on the only operator of these in Cuba by the first Trump administration led to the emergence of these services provided by third parties, which are not established companies but individuals who have accumulated vast funds to guarantee these flows.

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As I mentioned above, some student groups in the Cuban capital have promoted pressure tactics such as calling for a student strike, that is, a boycott of teaching, which seeks to make ETECSA very aware of the problem that its commercial measure poses for the majority of the population. “I can't study if I don't have up-to-date (online) information,” said a 28-year-old student. “If it's necessary to stop classes, they should be stopped until there's a logical response to these needs.” “The old prices were affordable, but now it's become very difficult,” said a first-year student who, despite thinking that prices should be rolled back to their previous rate, told Reuters that he will continue to attend classes. In addition to being naturally destined for popular rejection, most of the problem with this measure lies in its introduction in a context of total crisis. People are resorting to different alternatives, ingenious, according to AP, to try to get by and survive. “The blackouts are quite severe and, with gas in short supply, I have to be running around to get food on time,” a 50-year-old cosmetologist living on the outskirts of Havana told AP, as Cubans turn to their charcoal stoves.

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