Madrid/Cubadebate Part of a premise: the failures and poor service of the ETECSA telecommunications company generate great discomfort among their clients, which are all Cubans, since it is nothing other than a monopoly. What is the reason? According to its managers, any cause is foreign to their responsibility and the culprits are two: the blockade and the users themselves. The company alleges, fundamentally, robberies and sabotages, an increasingly frequent explanation for breakdowns in essential services and that involves a progressive change in the communicative policy of the regime, reluctant to admit that there were dissatisfaction with the revolution.
The note relative to Etecsa It addresses the problem in two areas: on the one hand that of connectivity and on the other of telephony. Despite the efforts that the company alleges in recent years, claimed by Kevin Castro Rodríguez, director of the company, there are limitations derived from the sanctions. “Our foreign exchange sources have been seriously affected. What does it mean? It has become very difficult to continue with the investor framework that we develop until 2022,” he says.
The Government and the company announced at the beginning of the year that some services in currency this 2025 would begin to be collected, as this newspaper had already advanced days before
The government and the company announced at the beginning of the year that some services in currency this 2025 would begin to be collected, as I had already advanced days before This newspaper. Since then, no details of that plan have been given again, but no one doubts that it will not take long to arrive. Nor has much more been known about the famous Arimao cable that the state installed, In collaboration with the French Orangebetween the province of Cienfuegos and the Island of Martinica in 2022. The structure should be ready by 2023, but for the moment Cuba is still connected with ALBA-1, the Venezuelan cable that operates since 2012.
Etecsa also alleges, with respect to the data, that the “illegal antennas and non -certified equipment” interfere with the signal, especially in Havana, where 12% is reached, compared to 6% of the rest of the island. The allusion refers to the new battle horse of the authorities, which They have intensified their work of “search and capture” of satellite teams such as Starlink – the provider of Spacex services – that lack authorization for Cuba, as well as its users, which it has warned in recent days with fines and other serious sanctions.
However, the greatest concern focuses on the fixed telephony part, which faces the “growing number of acts vandalism against their infrastructure.” According to Castro Rodríguez, there are “cuts to the fiber optics and cables that interrupt the service to 400 or 500 clients simultaneously, subtraction of batteries to cabinets and radio bases, burning and demolition of telephone posts. We have had several criminal acts, even intentional, counterrevolutionary,” he accuses.
According to Castro Rodríguez, there are “cuts to the fiber optics and cables that interrupt the service to 400 or 500 customers simultaneously, abduction of batteries to cabinets and radio bases, burning and demolition of telephone posts”
In Havana alone, where there are more than 450,000 lines of this type – together with 1.9 million mobile line holders and 68,000 Nauta Hogar -, there were 47 graves qualified incidents for “intentional damage to the infrastructure”, while, so far this year are 10.
Among the most concrete activities, the manager details that there was a cut in Camagüey that carried resolution work for six hours, causing – without specifying what – losses of 16 million Cuban pesos. “These are affectations that have a very severe impact for the company’s economy and for the country’s security. We have suffered cuts in optical fiber that even affect airport services,” he warned.
Both he and Pedro Luis Lozada Morales, also a territorial manager of Etecsa, insist that these acts harm the company, but also to “millions of Cubans who depend on these services for work, education and family communication.”
“We started the previous year with investments in more than 34 sites, with the resources that supported these investments. And when the rise of vandalism begins, we have not only had to divert the resources to those places, but the specialized personnel. We detect that, in many cases, there is no ingenuity, they are not accidents because we restore the services and in less than 24 hours we are re -damn the cables.
“The impact has been multiple, hence the importance of the work we have with social, mass organizations and all civil society to face such incidents,” says Castro Rodríguez.
Faced with an era in which any reaction that reflected outrage against the regime was passed by accident, the current strategy consists otherwise: to point out those incidents although highlighting that they are instigated activities from abroad, carried out by minority groups and immediately resolved by the authorities. So, no Not 15 days ago that the official press He also published two information alerting robberies in hydraulic systems and copper cables, in the same way that he has frequently informing of dielectric oil subtractions.
In September 2024 a trial was reported Against five people prosecuted for this crime that faced sentences of up to 15 years in prison, since a “crime against state security” can be considered for affecting the normal operation of equipment – such as substations and electric transformers.
“Now you need to stop prosecuting and condemn 30 years minimum or perhaps life imprisonment or death penalty better for those who are destroying the few buses that circulate in Havana”
This story has penetrated to such an extent among the population, that a note published this Sunday by the newspaper Cubainformation in which Informs omnibus repairs of the capital It has become an akelarre of penalty requests for those who commit these “sabotage acts.” “Now you need to stop prosecuting and condemn 30 years minimum or perhaps life imprisonment or better death penalty for those who are destroying the few buses that circulate in Havana,” a commentator snows at the foot of the news.
The report – was set by the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila – is nothing more than a technical relationship of acquired devices to recover 63 buses dedicated to the public transportation of passengers in Havana, but the impressions of the readers leave no doubt that the speech has found echo in a part of the related.
“Excellent news. It shows the concern and occupation of the State to solve the problems that most affect the people, but we must apply and publish very severe sanctions to the counterrevolutionary criminals who damage the bus.”
