ETECSAthe telecommunications monopoly in Cuba, launched this December an unprecedented offer: WhatsApp 24 hours a day and internet unlimited at dawn.
The company’s new promotion has led many to think that ETECSA will finally opt for flat rates and megabytes exclusively for traffic on social networks, a business strategy that has been applied in other countries for more than five years.
As it happens with all the promotions of the Cuban company, the recharge to access this offer must be done from abroad, one of the ways that the company has to obtain foreign currency.
At the moment, ETECSA has not ruled on whether it will implement this offer more frequently, although the flat rate was one of the requests of its users in a survey carried out by the company on last year on Twitterremember the IPS agency.
This service is currently limited exclusively to self-employed workers who have a computer equipment programmer licensewith prices that oscillate between 1,250 Cuban pesos and 24,150 pesos (between ten and 195 dollars), unaffordable for the average Cuban, who barely earns a salary of around 30 dollars a month.
The IPS agency mentions the case of Mexico, where 98% of mobile data service plans include access to social networks. This service was even provided unlimited with the arrival of the American company AT&T in the Mexican market, which caused fierce competition with Telcel and Movistar, which later imitated that formula.
But ETECSA does not operate under market conditions, but under monopoly. Los Cubans often complain about bad service offered by that company, the only one they can access and with exorbitant prices.
The company also carries out, in complicity with the repressive forces, selective cuts of the Internet and telephone lines to opponents and activists critical of the regime.