Hooked to the Cell Phone

Cuba: Hooked to the Cell Phone

July 22, 2013

Osmel Almaguer



HAVANA TIMES — With over 2 million mobile phone users, Cuba has around

half a million more cell phones than landlines. A number of "competent"

authorities often speak of this proudly, as though the reality behind

this phenomenon weren't shameful.



Thousands of landlines began to be installed around Cuba with the

arrival of the joint venture phone company ETECSA nearly ten years ago.

This process prioritized Havana over the rest of the country's provinces

because of its strategic importance as Cuba's capital.



The sprawling suburb of Alamar was one of Havana's prioritized areas and

one of the first places where landlines began to be installed was in the

part of the community where I live.



Needless to say, this process raised many hopes and awoke much passion

among people, both positive and negative. This was to be expected from a

people who, in their great majority, had never had a phone in their homes.



The plan had been conceived to have phone lines installed across the

entire neighborhood in a matter of a few years. The work came to a halt,

however, when it was only about 15 percent completed. At the time,

ETECSA was still a joint venture company.



People wondered why the company stopped intalling landlines and no one

ever gave any clear reason why. With time, people's enthusiasm over

these landlines waned and was replaced by the cell phone craze.



Having a mobile phone clipped to your belt became a status symbol. The

mobile phone introduced a new culture into Cuba, a culture with its own

behavioral codes and group dynamics. It also meant a triple investment

for the average Cuban, forced to enter into an inflexible, lifetime

phone line contract.



At first, owning a mobile phone was something of a luxury. Over time,

with a gradual decrease in prices, ETECSA achieved its lofty aim: to

satisfy the expectations of millions of users, "hooked" to this new toy

which does little to make communication less precarious, other than

afford users the minor benefit of being easy to locate.



The results of this process are the statistics which officials from the

now fully Cuban State company refer to when they proudly proclaim: "In

Cuba, there are more mobile phones than landlines", as though such a

ratio were a sign of development, and not sheer need.



What these officials fail to mention is that the installation of

landlines across Cuba came to a halt without apparent reason, that

mobile phone lines continue to be infinitely more expensive than

landlines and prohibitive for most Cubans (though highly lucrative for

this inefficient company).



As for me, I try and avoid thinking about this whole business, so as not

to imagine the worst.



Source: "Cell phones have eclipsed land line distribution in Cuba" -

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=96785