Cellphones, pirated signals spread in Cuba

Posted on Monday, 05.25.09
Cellphones, pirated signals spread in Cuba
El Nuevo Herald Staff Report

HAVANA -- Before leaving home for work, Aurelio makes sure he carries
the touch-screen cellphone with music player and camera that he bought
from a Spanish tourist. In today's Havana, a phone like that is a symbol
of power.

Aurelio (who asked that his surname not be published) is a privileged
member of a class of Cubans who try to maintain an above-average
standard of living without running into a system that not only
discourages individual initiative but often punishes it.

''In my opinion, people who work in the hotel, tourism and
transportation industries have a greater purchasing power and use
cellphones more frequently,'' Aurelio said. ``And I believe that will
continue until the day some things change.''

Cubacel, a company operated by the Cuban Telecommunications Company
(ETECSA), has a monopoly on mobile telephones on the island. The
connection fee is as high as $65. A charge is made for both reception
and transmission that vary from between 45 and 60 cents per minutes.
That's steep in a country where the average monthly salary is about 400
Cuban pesos (about $18).

SLOW PROGRESS

When it comes to mobile phone access, Cuba holds the last place (behind
Haiti) on the list of Latin American and Caribbean countries -- 0.2
phones per inhabitant or less than 5 percent of the population. First on
the list is Argentina.

Cuban authorities estimate that by the year 2013 there will be 1.4
million lines available, including regular users and prepaid-card users.

For the Cuban government, communications are a vital frontline. The
traditional and inflexible control of information for the past half
century has been challenged in recent years by new technologies. There
are about 20 independent blogs, such as Generation Y, where dissident
voices freely express their vision of reality. On occasion,
personalities in the opposition have participated in video-conferences
with exiles in Miami.

Despite the official restrictions and the slowness of the connections,
the Internet and the boom in cellphone use have been very useful to
human-rights activists, who transmit their denunciations abroad with a
speed that was unthinkable years ago.

Since the 1990s, television has been the censors' Achilles heel.
Thousands of Cubans, mostly in Havana, watch Spanish-language telecasts
from Miami. U.S. State Department officials estimate that 10,000 to
15,000 parabolic antennas are in use in Cuba.

Amaury, a Havana resident who rents rooms to foreign tourists for about
$30 per night, pays about $10 a month to receive a pirated TV signal.
That expense does not dramatically dent his monthly family budget --
about $450.

''Here, we pick up Miami channels such as Univisión and Channel 41
[America TeVé],'' said Amaury, who also asked that his surname not be
published. ``The only problem is that you can only watch the channel
selected by the owner of the parabolic antenna.''

DISTRIBUTION

The pirated signal is distributed by a neighbor through coaxial cables,
amplifiers and frequency boosters that normally blend with the ordinary
electric lines.

According to Amaury, the capricious limitation of the TV service is not
objectionable because -- he and his girlfriend agree -- Cuban television
is ``boring.''

Cuba has five television channels, at least two of which offer only
educational programming. One of them, Multivisión, began to broadcast
round the clock nine months ago. It was a desperate effort by the Cuban
Institute of Radio and Television to provide more attractive programming
and to slow the increase of pirated subscriptions.

Recently, the government announced that it will initiate a study to
launch digital TV 15 years from now, increasing the number of channels
and improving the signal in remote areas. Meanwhile, operations are
underway to dismantle illegal connections and break up a business that,
so far, has defied the authorities' strict vigilance.

In March, the Cuban press reported the arrest of several citizens for
illegal economic activities that included the dissemination of
television signals broadcast by the U.S. company DirecTV. Darris
Gringeri, a spokesman for DirecTV in New York, refused to comment on the
issue.

During the investigation, the Provincial Tribunal of Havana concluded
that the accused had contacts in the United States. Allegedly,
accomplices of the accused across the United States opened DirecTV
accounts for the sole purpose of furnishing the codes and installation
devices needed to capture the international signal in Cuba.

HARSH PUNISHMENTS

Punishment for illegal possession and installation of parabolic antennas
ranges from 3 to 5 years' imprisonment, fines and confiscation of goods,
according to each case.

Amaury, 41, does not know for sure how his neighbor obtained the
antennas and repeaters, but said that neither the fines nor the
confiscation of the equipment used for the distribution of satellite
signals ``will make clients forget cable television.''

According to him, every so often a van from the Ministry of Computer
Sciences and Communications drives through the neighborhood detecting
unauthorized frequencies.

''That happened in the Vedado neighborhood, but two or three days after
the police came and cut the special cables, the neighbors reinstalled
the connections,'' he said.

The authorities have been particularly watchful of citizens' access to
the Internet. There is still no official response from Cuba to the
suspension of a series of restrictions on communications and TV linkage
to the island announced recently by President Obama.

U.S. INVOLVEMENT

In fact, U.S. firms can already establish fiber-optic and satellite
connections and offer portable-telephony services. However, Cuba insists
on having access to a network of underwater Internet cables that would
provide faster connections, in violation of the rules of the trade
embargo imposed in 1962.

Price is one of the main obstacles to widespread Internet use. The
connection from hotels and ETECSA branches costs as much as 10 CUC per
hour. Recently, some hotels have denied the use of computers to Cuban
citizens, claiming the existence of a joint regulation by the Ministry
of Tourism and ETECSA, although its contents has not been published.

To the government, the usual explanation for the lack of a Web
infrastructure that satisfies the population's demands blames the
economic crisis and the U.S. embargo. ''It sounds good but it doesn't
compute,'' said Xiomara, 21, a student of engineering.

The government restrictions ''are economic, not political,'' she added.

Xiomara stood on line for more than 30 minutes, one day in May, to use a
computer in an ETECSA office at Obispo Blvd. in Old Havana. The
government, she said, has no idea as to what ''dissatisfied'' young
people can do.

''They want to wear us out, but I think that things are going to be
difficult for them,'' she said. ``Young people in Cuba are more restless
than ever.''

Cellphones, pirated signals spread in Cuba - Business - MiamiHerald.com
(25 May 2009)

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/v-fullstory/story/1063333.html