Email for Cuba
Email for Cuba is not something new, it has been available for over a year now. The Cuban government has announced very recently however, that citizens will finally be allowed to access the internet from their homes. Email access for Cuba is currently being provided at state-run internet cafes.
Cuba is currently making inroads with opening up it’s society, and allowing people to connect with the outside world.
Technology will be restricted in many ways, so that the Cuban government can continue to maintain absolute power.
An undetermined number of Cubans are using pirated internet signals or email accounts opened by friends and relatives abroad.
“There is no censorship,” according to Tania Velasquez a Cuban official for communications, “but we lack the technical capability to offer more than what we can offer, with the budget that we currently have.”
The state communications agency runs 118 internet centers for the public across the island, which has a total of 520 computers running on slow 2G networks.
Government officials have their own internet service.
In 2007 Cuba and Venezuela signed an agreement for an underwater fiber optic cable which would connect the island with the South American nation.
This agreement went into effect in 2013
Dozens of young people interested in purchasing a cell phone, opening an email account and surfing the internet have been seen gathering in front of the state-run communications office in Havana’s El Vedado District.
An estimated 2 million Cubans out of a total population of 11 million own a cell phone
at this time. This number is growing, but is still very small compared to cell phone users in other countries in Latin America.
About 330,00 Cubans are also permitted to surf the internet through government approved accounts, so whether there is any censorship or limitations on the information from the outside world is something that will be of interest, in the coming months.
