Cuba Extending Mobile Phone Coverage to Guantanamo Bay
Cuba's Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) has announced that it is to expand its cellphone coverage in a road linking several eastern provinces. The Cuban News Agency (ACN) reported that the company will start to provide mobile coverage on the highway linking the provinces of Las Tunas and Granma, also the shortest way to reach Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, and a radio station is being built in the town of Vado del Yeso.
The radio tower, to begin transmitting in late July, will also provide travelers with 33 new public phone services to be set up in nearby local communities, confirmed the company.
This year, ETCESA will also set up 93 public phone houses in far off communities in the province of Granma.
According to calculations from the Mobile World database, the company - which is the monopoly operator - ended Q1 '08 with just under 220,000 subscribers - which represents a population penetration level of under two percent.
Last month, the government lifted restrictions on mobile phone ownership, and the operator reported that it signed up 7,400 within the first ten days of the new regime. A cell phone contract costs about US$120 to activate - which equates to around half a year's wages on the average state salary.
interWAVE Communications won a contract in 2002 to manage a GSM network inside the US military base at Guantanamo Bay.
Posted to the site on 30th June 2008
