14ymedio, Havana, 17 August 2016 – Connecting to the internet from state WiFi rooms and hotspots, became more complicated this morning after the interruption suffered by the web browsing service provided by the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA). The interruption has left a trail of frustrated users and thousands of calls of complaints against state monopoly.
The service outage is also being felt in navigation rooms with the company’s own terminals, as confirmed by this newspaper through a phone call to the 118 repair number and a tour of several of the internet rooms in the Cuban capital. According to an employee, the company is undertaking “upgrading work on the network to improve service,” but she was unable to say when the service would be restored.
In a note posted by ETECSA on its Facebook page, the company reported that is “had been necessary to stop the service” because “since the early morning hours” there had been “failures in the equipment that supports internet access.”
The company explained that “specialists are working on solving the problem,” and that users “will be informed in a timely manner about the reestablishment of service.”
The note, signed by ETECSA’s Communications Board, offered apologies to the company’s clients “for the inconvenience this disruption may cause.”
Problems access the internet from WiFi hotspots and navigation rooms add to those of a difficult week in the functioning of email service on mobile phones. As of last Monday, users of this service complained about congestion blocking access to their mailboxes, which increases the difficulties of downloading and sending messages.
Previously, ETECSA has announced failures in the Nauta service for cellphones cell in the early hours of July 14 because of maintenance work.
The cut in the e-mail service is one more event added to what happened in of last year, when customers were unable to send or receive e-mails for six days. In January of this year the problem was repeated for more than 24 hours.
