January 3, 2009
In Cuba, Cellphone Calls Go Unanswered
As Cuba celebrates its 50th anniversary and a rickety state-run socialist economy struggles not only to feed, house and care for its people but also to offer them a nibble of global consumer culture. The Washington Post reports.
In his first year as president, Raśl Castro allowed the purchase of mobile phones which became e the new status symbol in proletarian Havana, but with a Cuban twist. Cubans don't actually talk on their cellphones. They use them as pagers.
When Cubans get a call, they rarely answer. Instead, they look at the number, find a land-line telephone, which is ubiquitous and dirt cheap to use, and return the call. If they're feeling flush, they might type a message.
The obstacles to entering the cellular world are almost impossibly high for most Cubans. First, there is getting the phone. Then to open a mobile phone account with the state telephone monopoly, ETECSA, a user must go, with a cellphone in hand, to one of the few offices in Havana, stand in line for an hour and then pay $65 to activate the service -- a bargain compared with the $130 the government used to charge.
Local calls between cellphones cost 65 cents a minute. Cellphone calls to a land line are slightly more. Calls abroad? Ordinary Cubans interviewed for this article laughed. No one calls abroad. Dialing the United States costs $2.70 a minute. Europe will set a caller back $5.85.
... A Cuban with a BlackBerry explained that like the United States and Europe, Cuban society will be changed by the cellphone. "We will be reachable," said the man, who was sharing a glass of homemade wine with friends on New Year's Eve. "But we don't want to answer."
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