The president of the state monopoly paints a bleak picture of the deterioration of its facilities

14ymedio, Havana, 19 January 2025 — Despite the precariousness of the facilities, mobile telephony and internet access are essential services for millions of customers in Cuba. However, according to an assessment made by its directors, the state monopoly Etecsa does not have the means, much less the budget, to deal with the increase in network traffic or the breakdowns in its equipment.
Etecsa’s first problem, said its president Tania Velázquez at a press conference last Thursday, is its radio base stations. Of the 5,600 that exist in the country, which are responsible for replicating the telephone signal, half do not have generators. That is, when there is a power outage, they stop working and, due to the traffic overload in the rest of the bases, the connections slow down.
As if that were not enough, 10% of these systems “have faulty parts and components, which have not been able to be repaired or acquired due to a lack of financial resources,” the company said in a statement.
So how does Etecsa deal with the more than 8 million Cubans connected to the network, of whom 95% have internet access? The answer is not known even by the executives themselves, who assure that “in 2024, income from abroad was barely 10% of what the company needs” to stay afloat.
“In 2024, income from abroad was barely 10% of what the company needs”
In fact, Nauta Hogar’s home internet service has been installed in just 30,000 homes in the last four years. “Despite having plans to expand internet service to homes, the lack of financial resources prevented progress in the investments necessary for the growth and maintenance of the network,” the company justified.
Fixed telephony is not going through its best moment either. By the end of 2024, more than 28,000 customers were suffering from “interruptions in service and the delay in their resolution, due to the lack of resources and technological obsolescence.” However, Etecsa says that the responsibility does not fall entirely on its shoulders: there are “other damages to the public network, whether due to vandalism or actions by third parties.”
The company even goes a step further and blames the low foreign currency earnings on foreign websites that profit from their mobile data and call-minute offers. “Although investments have been significant in the last decade, their pace of execution has decreased since 2022 due to the decrease in foreign currency earnings, directly related to the evolution of the illegal exchange rate,” it alleges.
“Since this fact, fraud channels have proliferated that allow payments to be made in dollars from websites located outside Cuba, which clone Etecsa’s offers and which are then converted into pesos taking advantage of the difference in the currency exchange rate,” explains the company, which estimates its losses due to these sites at “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The millions that are escaping also have an impact on the “sustainability of the company and the contributions it makes to the country”
The millions that are escaping also have an impact on the “sustainability of the company and the contributions it makes to the country.” Recently, following a fine received by the telecommunications company for not using the entire budget in Cuban pesos allocated by the State for 2024 – a defunct fund when it comes to investments and the purchase of equipment in dollars – the executives found the solution to all of its problems: dollarizing part of its services .
“We were fined because when last year’s accounts were done, millions of pesos remained unused. The problem is that there was no way to use them, because you can’t buy anything with them that is needed to make repairs or new installations,” Moisés, an Etecsa administrator in Old Havana, told 14ymedio.
The surplus was distributed as profits to the workers, and, to avoid falling into the same problem, Etecsa has begun to plan the way to sell certain services in “hard currency.” “Several scenarios have been evaluated, and so far the one that will probably be implemented is to limit the number of recharges that the same client can make in national currency; after a certain amount or monthly quantity they will have to buy the telephone recharge in dollars,” the administrator clarified. “Along with the modality that we already have of recharges from abroad, the purchase in national territory will be enabled, directly in dollars or with a Classic card.”
Officially, the company has not yet announced any changes, but customers have already been warned: “We are working on creating the conditions for the start of these actions, which will be reported and explained when they are ready,” Tania Velázquez added without further details on Thursday.
Officially, the company has not yet announced any changes, but customers are already warned
The few lines that define Etecsa’s future plans are buried by the few achievements that the company considers positive from 2024: greater use of payment platforms such as Transfermóvil and Monedero, the increase in mobile phone users and ensuring connection in scientific, educational, health, domestic trade and banking institutions.
Regarding the submarine cable installed by the French company Orange in Arimao (Cienfuegos), the development of which has become a sort of state secret, Velázquez limited himself to saying that “it is a well-executed and well-functioning project, through which not only the increase in internet access capacity has been guaranteed, but also the diversification of Cuba’s international connection routes.”
This is not in line with the perception of users, who have noticed a deterioration in internet access and a reduction in speed since the protests of 11 July 2021 [’11J’].
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