cell buy in Cuba

ENGLISH

LA HAVANA (AP) — Lines stretched for blocks outside phone centers Monday, April 14th as the government allowed ordinary Cubans to sign up for cellular phone service for the first time.

The contracts cost about US$120 (euro76) to activate - half a year’s wages on the average state salary. And that doesn’t include a phone or credit to make and receive calls.

But most Cubans have at least some access to dollars or euros thanks to jobs in tourism or with foreign firms, or money sent by relatives abroad. Lines formed before the stores opened, and waits grew to more than an hour.

Getting through the day without a cell phone is unthinkable now in most developed countries, but Cuba’s government limited access to mobile phones and other so-called luxuries in an attempt to preserve the relative economic equality that is a hallmark of life on the communist-run island.

President Raul Castro has done away with several other small but infuriating restrictions, and his popularity has surged as a result - defusing questions about his relative lack of charisma after his ailing older brother Fidel formally stepped down in February.

An article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma said it was Fidel Castro’s idea all along to lift bans on mobile phones, and that he was behind recent government orders easing restrictions that had prevented most Cubans from staying in hotels, renting cars, enjoying beaches reserved for tourists and buying DVD players and other consumer goods.

Cell phones on the island can make and receive calls from overseas, a key feature because the overwhelming majority of Cubans have relatives and friends in the United States.

Cuba’s state-controlled telecommunications monopoly, a joint venture with Telecom Italia, charges US$2.70 (euro1.70) per minute to call the U.S. and US$5.85 (euro3.70) per minute to Europe and most of the rest of the world. Making or receiving local calls costs US$0.30 (euro0.19) a minute.

Inside stores, Cubans showed ID cards to sign contracts and crowded around glass cases where cell phones rotated under bright lights. A basic Nokia Corp. model offering little more than calling and text-messaging cost about US$75 (euro47), while a snazzier camera-phone retailed for US$280 (euro175) - more than twice than in the U.S.