Browsing the Web from Cuba's Public Hotspots

Browsing the Web from Cuba's Public Hotspots
Translation posted 7 September 2015 17:27 GMT

It's 10 pm and Agramonte Park, in the central Cuban city of Camagüey,
looks like it is going to explode. It is crowded with people focused
intently on white screens that illuminate the darkness in the absence of
streetlights. At night, the benches barely provide enough space for
everyone. During the day, the sun scorches whoever tries to go online
here. If you want to sit at a cafe with a WiFi signal, you are required
to order something and pay for it.

La Rampa, a downtown Havana thoroughfare, can accommodate up to 100
simultaneously connected users. In parks with WiFi set up in Camagüey,
the number falls to only 50.

"It has reached the maximum," Alejo, a local blogger, tells me. "You
realize this when you see a message saying your request cannot be
processed when you enter your username and password," he adds.

To use the Internet in Cuba, one must sign up for an account with
ETECSA, the country's parent company for all telecommunications
services. There are two ways to get an account: you can buy a prepaid
Nauta card, or obtain a contract with ETECSA that includes Internet
browsing and email. In both cases, you are required to present official,
government-issued identification, be it a state ID or passport.

Hotels provide Internet access services for prices ranging from the
equivalent of US$4.50 to US$10 per hour, and they do not request any
sort of personal information. But with an average monthly salary of
US$20, this kind of access is unthinkable for most Cubans.

Three weeks ago, a Nauta card cost $2.50 on the black market. Today,
prepaid cards circulating in the emerging black market of La Rampa cost
$3 for browsing in WiFi zones. At official ETECSA retail outlets they
cost $2, but users have to wait in long lines alongside people in need
of charging their cell phones, paying their phone bills, or buying
different products.

At present, Cubans experience the Internet in fits and starts. It is
expensive and short-lived.
The neighborhood of Guanabo, also in Havana, lacks WiFi zones, but an
ETECSA outlet with three computers and air conditioning – a real luxury
compared to the one in neighboring Casino Deportivo – has become a
popular gathering place for teens. Jennifer already has her Facebook
account and proudly saves the page on her browser to show it to her
mother, from her disconnected computer. "What did you look at most
today?" I ask her. She shows me photos downloaded from the page for Los
Ángeles, a trendy music group.

In La Rampa, Guanabo, Camagüey, or Casino Deportivo, everyone seems to
look at the same things. Internet in Cuba – from public access points –
is limited to one social network (Facebook), some email services, video
and chat applications. It is barely a basic substitute for an expensive
and inefficient telephone service. It's not as though there is only one
browsing experience, that assumption would be a mistake. But walking
around these places, one can observe generalized consumer patterns.

And the lack of full Internet access is only part of the problem. Prices
are high. The locations of hotspots give people little choice but to sit
on steps, curbs, and sidewalks while using the Web, making an
unfavorable atmosphere for browsing. And there is no coherent strategy
for teaching everyone how to use the Internet, beyond what is offered
for university students and those working in key sectors of scientific
development in the country. These factors have left most Cuban Internet
users logging on for little more than utilitarian purposes.

At present, Cubans experience the Internet in fits and starts. It is
expensive and short-lived. It is an investment, and one that must bring
worthwhile returns for those who make it. Several ads posted on Revolico
(a Cuba-based informal trade site similar to Craigslist) offer
management services for personal Facebook accounts. "There is a man
living near my house who manages accounts for three girls who have
foreign pen pals. They respond to the messages and he sends them," a
user who did not wish to be identified tells me.

On the next corner, a young girl opens her Facebook account. It features
a scandalous profile photo that says "I'm sexy." Her parents think she
is in a park with her friends, which is technically true. But no one has
explained to her parents that online you can be in many places at the
same time, and that some of these places can be dangerous. Or perhaps
they've seen it on state television, a report describing this as a
danger of the Internet, as something that happens far away in other
countries, but never in Cuba, never to their children.

Add to this a new sense of urgency. In the Cuba of 2015, the Internet
barely solves one of the most painful challenges that peaked in the
1990s: People's proximity to one another. With almost two million Cubans
living in the United States and hundreds of thousands of families
separated by immigration, Internet access lowers the barriers presented
by visas and the astronomical cost of airline tickets. It unites people.
Perhaps that is most important now.

For everything else, there will be time.

Source: Browsing the Web from Cuba's Public Hotspots · Global Voices -
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/09/07/browsing-the-web-from-cubas-public-hotspots/