Thousands of people in Cuba will soon be able to access the internet in their homes for the very first time.
The state-owned telecommunications company announced that it is installing internet in about 2,000 Havana homes for a two-month trial period. And if all goes well, the country could extend that period and perhaps increase the number of homes with access.
Before this, the only people who could access the internet in Cuba were some top officials and those who could access it via public wifi and mobile hotspots. So this move potentially opens up a whole new world of possibilities for many people in Cuba — as well as the people and businesses around the world that want to communicate with them.
For businesses that share information and resources online, it might seem like you can already access people in basically any market around the world. But there are still places where people don’t have the infrastructure or resources to access the internet.
Access Provides New Online Business Opportunities
So changes like this one can potentially lead to big things for online businesses, especially small businesses who otherwise would have little access to such markets. It may be on a fairly small scale for now. But that scale will likely increase. It could lead to even more internet access for the people of Cuba. And the more people around the world who are connected, the more possibilities there are for your online business.
Havana Photo via Shutterstock
Joel Libava
Pretty crazy when you think about it, Annie. Internet for the first time this late in the game?
What a huge learning curve the country will be going through.
Thanks for reporting on this story.
Joel: Cuba has a long way to go. First, they have to establish freedom of speech. State controlled Internet with censorship in place, will not help.
Aira Bongco
It will be tough especially since everything is so advanced now. They may find everything too overwhelming and confusing. They are going to need some serious training.
Annie Pilon
I’m sure there will definitely be a lot of adjustments – it will be interesting to see how it works out!
A c
Lol, what a load of BS. Cuba has internet since the mid 90s. Crappy AF, always behind proxies and partially censored if you want, but internet nonetheless.
What typically only government officers, the press and specific individuals used to have is internet access from home. Generally via obsolete 56k modems due to infrastructure restrictions. Everyone else had to access it from their shool or workplace, or pay the obscene fees for the crappy wifi spots ($4 USD per hour), dozens of people accessing the same point .
This is of course, a movement in the right direction, but I’m more interested in what technology they will be deploying (DSL, Cable, Optical fiber or wireless) and whether the usage fees get to reasonable levels because those are the factors limiting access.
As for censorship, don’t even try. They have a single provider and two access points to the world (a fiber optic cable connecting to Venezuela and slow and expensive satellite links), so they can enforce whatever rules they want and the only way around it would be using VPNs that they can also block.