Raul Castro: Cubans can have cell phones

[xmas13]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080328/...ba_cell_phones

HAVANA - 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.

[the real magoo]

Welcome to 1985

[pornguy]

the people that have family that send them money will be able to use them.

[da man]

and cuba welcomes the new era of mobile porn...

[notoldschool]

lucky them.

[xmas13]

PornoCuba.Mobi is AVAILABLE.

He he.

[pornguy]

Porn is illegal in Cuba. I would NOT try getting them as customers just yet.

[DaddyHalbucks]

Once the Cuban people start tasting freedom, they may like it.

[yys]

A lot of the Cuban's I met down there in '06 already had cellphones. Told me they get pay as you go cards and use the phones to text message with each other. You could pay for your trip if you managed to bring in a few cheap phones ; $400 U.S. for a used Moto V3's was what we were offered.

[CarlosTheGaucho]

I wish they banned mobile phones around here...

[tranza]

Damn, I had no idea they didn't have cell phones there yet...