A faculty at the University of Havana protested the new measures, which it considered “a huge lack of respect for the Cuban people.”
14ymedio, Havana, May 31, 2025 — Indignation at all levels has been caused by the measures that the communications monopoly Etecsa implemented this Friday for mobile telephony. The tension has been unanimous in the country, from universities to the regime’s unwavering supporters, who have defined the announcement as “an enormous lack of respect for the Cuban people.”
This phrase was expressed, hours after the announcement, by the Council of the FEU (Student University Federation) of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing of the University of Havana. The fact that Etecsa claims “challenges in its financial, technological and operational situation” is not justification for the tarifazo* [rate increase] announced by the company.
The Council is particularly concerned about the “mass of students” who are “almost entirely dependent on internet access for study and research. We think the attitude of Etecsa is inopportune and reckless, setting prices that more than anything increase the inflation in which our nation is increasingly immersed.”
The statement rises in tone when it alludes to the alleged “legal right of the company to make such changes in the service without prior notice,” something it only “vaguely” obtained from Prime Minister Manuel Marrero. This lack of notice is “an aggravating factor,” they conclude.
“We urge Etecsa to review the decision taken, because we believe that it is a mistake and that more reasonable measures should be sought to address existing problems in its business management,” they conclude. “In the current situation of the country, with constant and prolonged problems with electricity and water services, low availability of public transport and rising food prices, to mention just some of the problems that are already part of our daily lives, internet access remained one of the last resources available to the population and students.”
The pro-regime spokesman known as El Necio also posted a review of Etecsa on social networks
The pro-regime spokesman known as El Necio [The Fool] also posted a review of Etecsa on social networks, saying that the managers on State TV’s Round Table program “did not really respond to the specific dissatisfaction and concerns at the moment.” The company’s measure, he explained, “does not solve much” and has been “highly unpopular.”
“I do not recall any other measure which has generated such a high level of immediate and widespread dissatisfaction, even among the sector of people most committed to the Cuban Government and to the socialist process. Analyze the impact and listen to the citizenry that is being expressed. If the measure goes against the interests and needs of the people it is against the Revolution,” he said.
Using the meager excuse of the embargo, El Necio said that Etecsa “will have no choice but to rectify this commercial strategy and find a balance between the need of the companies to collect dollars and the population’s need for connection to communicate, study, work, inform themselves in the face of so many blackouts and also entertain themselves.” Bypassing needs and claims of the people, he noted, “is very harmful.” He also placed the task in the hands of the Party and the Government “to instruct the managers of Etecsa to rectify [the price increase] as soon as possible.”
María del Carmen Hernández, a professor at the Universidad Central de Las Villas and mother of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s official journalist, Leticia Martínez, said she understood “Etecsa’s need for foreign exchange to improve its service, but unfortunately I can’t contribute a dollar. Today I shall watch the Round Table, but most certainly I will not pay these prices.”
For her part, Mariana Camejo, director of the online medium La Joven Cuba – almost always in affinity with the regime – demanded that Etecsa think about “the students; the teachers who send, receive files and search for resources for their classes with their own data because the connection in universities does not allow them to do so; and the retirees who enjoy watching videos, etc.”
“The prices of the ’extra’ plans are prohibitive wherever you look. Etecsa is trying to highlight the ’cheap’ basic plans, but there is no way that people will not notice that their wages are falling and life’s precariousness is rising. No, the policy cannot be that the macro accounts balance the loss, at the expense of the people.”
Also added to the call was musician and writer Ernesto Limia, who highlighted that “university students and their teachers, doctors, journalists and intellectuals – a journalist at the ICRT earns just over 4,000 pesos, to cite an example – have been harmed. Also affected are artists and writers who work in the public sector without internet connection; professionals who without a connection don’t have the opportunities of their counterparts abroad; and pensioners whose checkbooks do not give them enough to survive without family or social security assistance.”
The musician and writer Ernesto Limia also added that “university students and their teachers have been harmed”
This Friday, Lidia Esther Hidalgo Rodriguez, commercial vice president of Etecsa, explained that customers of the prepaid mobile service will be able to make recharges to their main balance up to a total amount of 360 pesos over the course of 30 days. This restriction contrasts with the ability that Etecsa customers had, until this Thursday, to carry out refills in national currency without restrictions.
With this recharge of 360 pesos for 30 days, consumers will be able to purchase, at most, a package with 6 gigabytes (GB) of web browsing, 60 minutes for making calls and the possibility of sending 70 text-only messages (SMS). Below the package of higher price and capacity, there are 4.5 GB of internet connection for 240 pesos; another 2 GB + 15 min, 20 SMS for 120 pesos and 4 GB + 35 min, 40 SMS for 240 pesos.
Since this Friday, an extra package of 3 GB of web browsing requires 3,360 pesos, while to obtain 7 GB you have to pay 6,720, a figure that exceeds the average monthly salary, which in 2024 stood at 5,839 pesos. As for the package of 15 GB of data to connect to the internet, it amounts to 11,760 pesos, a price that has caused a flurry of indignant comments on the official pages of the company.
Even so, several users have complained about the inability to access new offers, supposedly available since yesterday. Many even associate it with the possibility that Etecsa, in a rapture of lucidity, has decided to “rectify its error.”
*Translator’s note: The “azo” ending in Cuban Spanish is a ’’magnifier.’ ‘Tarif’ is ‘rate’ or ‘price’. Thus, ‘tarifazo’, translates roughly as: “the gigantic price increase thing”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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