Cuba Lags in Communication Technology

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Cuba Lags in Communication Technology
Raul Castro's stance is not going to help Cuba improve its service -- or
its world rankings -- in technology, the author argues.

While Cuba's cellular sector is growing, other tech sectors like
computers and Internet are stagnant or declining.

BY JUAN TAMAYO

Cuba's cellular telephone service mushroomed in 2008, but the remainder
of its telecommunications and information technology sectors were
stagnant or even shrank, according to the most recent report from the
Havana government.

The data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONE) in fact put
Cuba at or near the hemisphere's bottom in terms of fixed telephone
lines, personal computers and access to the Internet. ONE's data,
especially on the economy, is sometimes regarded as suspect. But its
June report is so grim that it's difficult to believe the figures could
be worse.

CELLULAR JUMP

The sole positive news was a significant jump in the number of cellular
lines from 2007 to 2008, apparently the result of Raul Castro's decision
to allow all Cubans to contract for cell service -- though at sky-high
prices, about $35 a month for the service in a country where the average
monthly income officially stands at about $17. Cell service during that
period grew by about 136,000 lines, from about 330,000 to about 466,000,
according to ONE.

Yet fixed telephone lines barely grew in the same period, from 999,490
to 1,033,565. With a total of 1.42 million fixed, cell and other
telephone lines in a country of 11.2 million people, the island's
telephone density per 100 inhabitants at the end of 2008 stood at 12.6,
the lowest in Latin America and even lower than Haiti's, the poorest
country in the hemisphere.

In its information technology sections, ONE reported that 1,314,000
Cubans had graduated as of the end of 2007 from computer literacy
courses at the 611 Youth Computer Clubs (Joven Club de Computacion),
government-run centers spread around the island that claimed to have
6,300 computers. Yet the rest of ONE's numbers left many puzzling how
those Cubans would use that knowledge, given the limited number of
computers and internet connections.

LAGS IN COMPUTERS

Cuba has some 630,000 personal computers -- 56 per 1000 people, compared
to the 191.5 per 1000 reported by the Caribbean islands of St. Kitts and
Nevis -- of which 400,000 are "connected in network," according to the
statistics office. Its 1,450,000 reported "users" equal about 13 percent
of the population, although Havana residents say most of those computers
are at work places, such as ministries, factories and hospitals, and
that most of those "users" are likely only on the island's "intranet" --
a system that limits their access to mostly government web pages and
domestic e-mails.

Even at 13 percent, Cuba lags far behind other Latin American countries
in Internet access. It's ahead of El Salvador, with 9.9 percent, but
behind Costa Rica's 35.7 per cent and Jamaica's 53 percent, according to
Internet World Stats, an independent web site that tracks the industry.
The average for all of Latin America and the Caribbean is 29.9 percent.

ONE also reported computer equipment imports worth $6.1 million in 2008,
compared to $3.6 million in 2007 and a mere $120,640 in 2006, as well as
2,168 domain names registered under the ".CU" extension. Under a sector
titled "Investments in information technologies and communications" it
reported 317 million Cuban pesos invested in 2008, far less than the 423
million it reported for 2007 and about the same as the 312 million it
reported for 2003.

NO POLICY CHANGE

Despite Cuba's clear lag behind the rest of the region on the
communications and information technology sectors, Raul Castro has given
no hint that he might take advantage of President Barack Obama's
decision in April to ease some of the telecommunications sections of the
U.S. embargo. U.S. companies can now provide cellular service and
roaming in Cuba, satellite TV and fiber optic cable facilities, and
accept payments for those services from U.S. residents -- for example,
someone in Miami paying for a relative in Havana to receive satellite TV.

Castro's stance is not going to help Cuba improve its service -- or its
world rankings -- in those sectors. While the 12.6 phone lines per 100
inhabitants reported for 2008 was about double the 6.4 lines per 100
reported for 2003, it's still way below the 15 per 100 that Cuba
reported in 1958 -- at the time the second highest rate in Latin America.

Juan O. Tamayo, former Foreign Editor and Chief of Correspondents at The
Miami Herald. Tamayo was The Miami Herald's correspondent in charge of
Cuba coverage from 1995 to 2000. In May 2009, he was appointed Research
Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies,
University of Miami. Republished with permission from ICCAS.

Latin Business Chronicle (21 July 2009)
http://www.latinbusinesschronicle.com/app/article.aspx?id=3570