Cuba Rolling Out Mobile Internet Services

Cuba has started providing Internet on the mobile phones of select users as it aims to roll out the service nationwide by year-end, in a further step toward opening one of the Western Hemisphere’s least connected countries. Journalists at state-run news outlets were among the first this year to get mobile Internet, provided by Cuba’s telecoms monopoly, as part of a wider campaign for greater Internet access that new President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said should boost the economy and help Cubans defend their revolution, Reuters reported. Certain customers, including companies and embassies, have also been able to buy mobile data plans since December, according to the website of Cuban telecoms firm ETECSA, which has not broadly publicized the move. ETECSA has said it will expand mobile Internet to all its five million mobile phone customers, nearly half of Cuba’s population, by the end of this year. Whether because of a lack of cash, a long-running US trade embargo or concerns about the flow of information, Cuba has lagged behind in web access. Until 2013, Internet was largely only available to the public at tourist hotels in Cuba.