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Cuba Lifts Restrictions On Personal Cellphones
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Friday's decision is likely to increase the number of Cubans who have cellphones, allowing islanders who were afraid to break the ownership rule to have access to the service, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a dissident economist, said in a telephone interview from Havana. "This ends the fiction of the ban," he said. "There's a bit of rationality in this decision."
It costs the equivalent of $119 to start service and $64 for the least expensive phone, a hefty price for state workers who earn the equivalent of as little as $13 a month.
"If it's not affordable, it's only going to be available to people who have a lot of money," said Eduardo, a construction worker who declined to give his last name, in line outside a cellphone store.
Other Cubans seemed to be reveling in a new sense of freedom and independence. "Now we're not going to have to be dependent on foreigners," a woman, who gave her name only as Gisela, said outside a cellphone store. "This is not a luxury. If my mother falls ill, now she'll be able to call me."
Cuba has had cellphone service since 1991. The service is provided by a state-owned company, ETESCA, which is partly owned by the Italian telephone conglomerate, Telecom Italia.
A Washington Post special correspondent in Havana contributed to this report.
