Cubans Swarm to Cell Phones
Posted on April 28, 2008 by Cami Martin
Photo: voxphoto (flickr)
In a span of just ten days, 7,400 Cubans signed new mobile phone contracts. On April 14, President Raul Castro lifted a ban restricting ordinary citizens from purchasing personal cell phones. The number of contracts is impressive, the BBC reports, considering that a cell phone in Cuba costs six times the average monthly salary.
Under Raul's brother Fidel, only government officials and people working for foreign firms were allowed to own cell phones. In addition to lifting the ban on personal cell phones, Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on DVDs, car rentals and other goods.
What more changes in Raul Castro's Cuba lie ahead?
Bookmark/Search this post with
Digg
Facebook
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
StumbleUpon
Twitter
Printer-friendly version
Comments
NYT: 'Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?'
The New York Times' Sara Corbett wrote a fascinating piece exploring the transformative potential of cell phones in a recent Sunday Magazine profile of a Nokia "human-behavior researcher" who wanders less-developed countries looking for design insights.
Today, there are more than 3.3 billion mobile-phone subscriptions worldwide, which means that there are at least three billion people who don’t own cellphones, the bulk of them to be found in Africa and Asia. Even the smallest improvements in efficiency, amplified across those additional three billion people, could reshape the global economy in ways that we are just beginning to understand.
The article goes on to talk about the economic advantage of cellphone owners, its representation of "bottom-up economic development" and the potential of mobile-phone banking to revolutionize the industry. It's well worth a read.
Small Steps
Raul Castro has continued his commitment to making small changes to the Cuban economy. As of July 11th, 2008 the Cuban government will allow private taxis to operate legally.
Private taxis have thrived illegally throughout Havana for nine years. There are entire taxi routes set-up by word of mouth throughout the cities. The routes are serviced by both state-run taxis and private taxis. They are a cheap alternative for cubans who (most) can't afford to pay for state-run taxis. The primary concern about private taxis was that they would take money away from the state run taxis and directly to the drivers. But in 1990 after the fall of the Soviet Union the government was forced to allow some entrepreneurship to grow in order to offset the losses created by the broken trade relationship. And since that point the private taxis have continued working regardless of if they had a licence or not.
The legalization of private taxis is a positive move for the government as the taxes required for the license will boost revenue, while simultaneously benefiting the people as, "new licenses should ease serious transit woes..." It is a step in the right direction, but not a complete solution to the transportation nor economic woes within Cuba. In the future, it will be interesting to see if the industry grows or whether the drivers continue to operate without a permit as they have done for nine years.
Post new comment