Cuba - A nation gets connected

Cuba: A nation gets connected

Cubans have embraced new WI-FI hotspots
Connections aren't as fast as U.S. but good enough to make video calls
Demand for Internet connections far outstrips supply
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD AND PATRICIA MAZZEI
mwhitefield@miamiherald.com

HAVANA On a recent Sunday afternoon, entire families — grandparents,
newborn babies and teenage girls snapping selfies in their most
fashionable clothes — were gathered on the steps, walls and curbs of a
plaza in the Playa neighborhood.

But they weren't there for a social event. What brought them together
was the quest for connectivity. In July, the government began rolling
out 35 new and improved Wi-Fi hotspots. In most cases, the Cubans at the
Playa hotspot were paying more attention to their cellphones and other
gadgets than each other.

To say Cubans have embraced connectivity doesn't begin to describe their
new love affair with Facebook, imo — a video call application, and phone
connections robust enough to send photographs and selfies to friends and
family abroad and around Cuba. They perch on park benches tapping at
laptops, lean against building walls staring at tablets or sit on curbs
with their cellphones as traffic whizzes past.

What's interesting to Ted Henken, a Baruch College professor who has
studied the Internet in Cuba, is that Cubans are living out some of
their most personal moments — family reunions and introductions to new
babies and spouses — not in the intimacy of their own homes but in
public plazas and parks. "It's all happening out there in a public
place," he said.

Blogger Yoani Sánchez calls the 35 new hotspots a "social phenomenon."

Marlene Velarde, her husband and grandson recently visited the office of
ETECSA — the state telecom monopoly — in Playa, and plunked down 6 Cuban
convertible pesos (around $6) for three hours of Internet service. They
spent the first hour or so learning the imo application so they could
make a video call to Miami.

The new Wi-Fi sites are proving popular across Cuba.

"Thank goodness they brought the Internet," said Armando Aguilera, a
19-year-old college student at the main square in Holguín, a city in
eastern Cuba, who was sending Facebook messages and trying to video-chat
with his mother in Angola. "Here, we're a thousand light-years away from
other technology."

Imo, a video app Cubans use because Skype isn't available, has opened up
new opportunities for those who could only reach out to friends and
family before through phone calls or perhaps an occasional email.

At Holguín's Park of Flowers, Beatriz Ricardo paced under the shade of a
tree, trying to get rid of her cellphone's glare by covering it with her
hand. She spoke for 25 minutes with her husband, who recently moved to
Nicaragua. He showed off his new place on video.

"I saw his kitchen and his bedroom and everything!" a beaming Ricardo
said at the end of the conversation. "Email is cheaper. But then you
can't see where they live."

Still, imo has its limitations, said 21-year-old Xiulee Ochoa, a medical
student trying to reach her boyfriend in Canada from a sidewalk
bordering the Park of Flowers, one of two new hotspots in the city of
about 300,000. "It's kind of obsolete," she said. "You also can't
download a movie or a music video."

Briseyda DeLeinia, a 32-year-old dentist, traveled 45 minutes to
Santiago, the country's second-largest city, to video-chat with her
husband, who recently moved to Miami. "Everybody is excited about these
places," she said. She was trying to connect from Santiago's Céspedes
Park, one of three city hotspots. But demand is so high, she said,
people need more WI-FI connections. "Sometimes [they] have to travel a
long way to get here," she lamented.

The new service is open to anyone with a Nauta.cu account that allows
customers to get email on their mobile phone, tablets or personal
computers. Rather than an entirely new service, WIFI_ETECSA is a new
path where connections are a bit speedier that those offered at most
hotels or state cyber cafes. The connections allow 50 to 100 people to
navigate at the same time and the government says speeds could reach 1
megabit per user.

Although prices are still high for most Cubans (a little more than $2
per hour), they are about half what they used to be. "At least it's
cheaper than by phone," said Aguilera, the Holguín student, who compared
the web fee to the $1.60-a-minute charge to call Angola.

IT'S THE FIRST TIME I DID IT [IMO], AND TO SEE HIM IS JUST TREMENDOUS
FOR A MOTHER. I'M ALMOST WITHOUT WORDS.
Estel 'Merci' Rodríguez Ortiz

But with the scant number of new WI-FI (pronounced WE-fee in Spanish)
sites, hotels — where Cubans buy Internet access or try to piggyback on
the signals bleeding outside — still do a brisk Internet business.

Pirating signals can be a hit or miss proposition. So many locals
discovered the password to a free, special government connection for
journalists during Pope Francis' visit to Holguín on Sept. 22, for
example, that the telecom agency was forced to change the code.

Back in Havana, patrons of the ETECSA office in Playa waited in line to
buy scratch-off cards containing their Internet access codes. Most toted
their own cellphones, tablets and laptops and connected outside because
all 18 computer stations inside were full.

Some of the users were very tech savvy, but there also were a lot of
first-timers learning to post selfies, connect on imo and set up
Facebook accounts. "No country is going to ban Facebook and with
Facebook you can do a lot," said Henken. "I would guess that it's secure."

ETECSA, by the way, has its own Facebook page.

Some complained of dropped calls and the need to reconnect over and over
with distant lands, or said they'd like to see faster WI-FI connections.
So many people try to log on during popular hours — weekday evenings,
for example — that overwhelmed hotspots often boot them off.

But in general, they like the new service.

"This is marvelous," said Velarde as she connected via cellphone with
her son Erick Corredera in Miami. Although she could see and hear him,
the image on the Cuban end of the call froze. "In Miami when you can't
see the image, we just call the company and they fix it," said Corredera
via his mother's cellphone in Havana.

"This is a little step. Before we couldn't see each other at all," he said.

"Adiós, Papi," his four-year-old son Samuel said as the call ended. Then
with a bit of prompting from the adults, he signed off in English: "I
love you."

Nearby, a man cradled a newborn that the family hoped to introduce to
relatives abroad via imo.

On another weekend, 13-year-old Gilberto Rafael Pérez Cabrera and his
uncle, Franciso Romar, sat on a wall in the same plaza sharing earbuds.
They were speaking with Gilberto's mother who had just arrived in
Nigeria to join his stepfather who was on medical mission in the African
country. But their call kept dropping and they kept dialing a cellphone
with a lime green cover.

On a nearby wall, Yazmín Coello and her mother Leonida Ferrer were
sharing a pair of earbuds, too. They were talking with Coello's sister
in the Philippines who is pregnant with twins. Coello says her sister
and brother-in-law, who works for an energy company, have been living
abroad for the past five years.

"I come here for imo, to check mail, for Facebook, and also to call my
father who is living in Mexico," says Coello, who works in human resources.

But Estel "Merci" Rodríguez Ortiz was a video call novice. She borrowed
the cellphone of her ex-husband's wife, to make a video call to her son,
Jorge Michel, in Hungary. He's been working in Herceghalom , a town
outside Budapest, as a forklift truck driver and has been home only
twice in 18 years.

"It's the first time I did it [imo], and to see him is just tremendous
for a mother. I'm almost without words," she said as tears streamed down
her cheeks. "And thank God, the pope is also coming today."

The separation has been tough on her. "I have grandchildren I don't
know," Rodríguez said. "Every night when I go and look at the moon, I
know my son is in the sun over there. But it doesn't matter. It's the
same moon here as the one there."

Communication between families must improve, she said, but the new WI-FI
connections are "an enormous achievement. "Imagine it, we're making a
small step toward the development we haven't had," said Rodríguez. "To
be able to see a little more toward the world outside is very important."

WITH THE INTERNET, WE HAVE CROSSED THE RUBICON. NOW IT'S A PROCESS.
THERE'S BEEN SUCH GREAT PRESSURE FROM EVERY CORNER OF SOCIETY FOR THIS.
Carlos Alzugaray, an educator and retired Cuban diplomat

While most are using the WI-FI connections to surf the net or stay in
touch with friends and relatives, others have figured out how to make
money. After purchasing a WI-FI card, they use software such as
Connectify Hotspot that allows several connections that can be resold at
a discount compared to the ETECSA rate.

While most people at the Playa hotspot seemed to be helping those with
less Internet savvy for free, there are also "advisers" willing to sell
their expertise for a price.

"With the Internet, we have crossed the Rubicon," said Carlos Alzugaray,
an educator and retired Cuban diplomat. "Now it's a process. There's
been such great pressure from every corner of society for this."

Among those who tote around a tablet is Miguel Díaz-Canel, first vice
president of Cuba's Council of State and Cuban leader Raúl Castro's heir
apparent.

"We want every person in Cuba to be able to be connected," U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry said in July when he was in Havana for a
flag-raising ceremony at the U.S. Embassy. "We have offered to and we
will help in every way possible to help provide that connectivity."

Although some U.S. companies, including Google, seem eager to help Cuba
build up its Internet capabilities, the government still hasn't tipped
its hand on how much help it wants from the United States.

"Cuba should skip technology generations," said Larry Press, a professor
at California State University, Dominguez Hills. But to do that it needs
money, he said, and it needs to overcome its fear of losing control.

Miami Herald staff writer Jim Wyss contributed to this story from
Santiago. Mazzei reported from Holguín.

Source: Cuba: A nation gets connected | Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article38012694.html