This was one of the pieces of news announced by the Executive President of the Cuban Telecommunications Company, ETECSA, Tania Velázquez, at a press conference where she addressed the main results of that entity last year, the current situation of the company and its challenges for 2025.

The international bandwidth has been increased, especially since the entry into operation of the Arimao submarine cable, triples its capacity to reach 380Gbps, of which 80% is used.

The 76% of phones that are currently on the network support 4G and 90% of them are smartphones.

As a result, there has been an increase in mobile traffic, which has tripled in the last 4 years.

Among the habits of consuming content on Internet, Cubans prioritize social networks, particularly Facebook, although Velázquez also specified that Instagram has also grown significantly in the last period. Youtube and WhatsApp remain among the most used.

New interests have been incorporated in Cuban Internet users, such as an increase in access to gaming platforms, she said, while national and international electronic commerce also occupies an important place in navigation.

E-Commerce on the Island exceeded 5.3 million users and added more than 1.2 billion operations during 2024, equivalent to a 30% growth compared to the previous year. More than 150 thousand businesses use Transfermóvil for their operations.

Connectivity to important institutions in various sectors such as science, education, health, domestic trade and banking, among others, continued to be ensured; as support for the digital transformation process the country undergoes.

But these and other discrete breakthrouhgs have been marked above all in the last three years by the lack of financial resources, which threatens the sustainability of services and the investment process necessary to satisfy the demands of users with the required quality and speed, as well as to guarantee the renewal of an old technological infrastructure.

This is a situation conditioned, among other factors, by the economic situation of the country, undoubtedly marked by the intensification of the blockade imposed by the United States, and which has led to a decrease in the investment curve of the company, which is not in correspondence, obviously, with its projections and objectives, which are to support the development of the country and respond to the needs of the population, clarified Velázquez.

Among the limitations conditioned by the lack of financial resources, the following were mentioned, among other examples: the low increase in Nauta Hogar services - Barely 30 thousand in 4 years - as well as the need for repair and multiplication of radio bases (antennas), half of which don’t have energy autonomy and 10% have equipment problems.

In 2021, a sustained decrease in ETECSA's income began, with the cell phone recharge modality being the most affected.

Such a decrease in income is associated with the evolution of the illegal exchange rate. With the monetary order, prices in CUC for the population were adjusted to the 1x24 exchange rate, and the company has maintained them this way until today.

There are also reports of fraud schemes that allow payments in dollars to be made from websites located outside Cuba, which clone ETECSA's offers that are then converted into CUP taking advantage of the difference with the official exchange rate.

The annual loss thus exceeds hundreds of millions of USD, which affects the sustainability of the company and its contributions to the country.

Thus, in such conditions, the sustainability of the network becomes critical while it’s impossible to provide a solution to reports of breakages given the shortage of resources and materials.

Tania Velázquez, Executive President of ETECSA, stresses the importance of being informed about company news only through official channels. Photo: @ETECSA_Cuba.

Among these pending issues are, in addition to the already mentioned 10% of radio bases with hardware damage, more than 28 thousand fixed telephone services reported, of which 85% have been waiting for a response for more than a week.

Added to this is the lack of ADSL modems, as well as SIM cards, both for delivering new ones and for their replacement.

Velázquez commented that, as it had been announced, during this year commercial measures will be implemented with the objective of increasing the foreign currency income of ETECSA, which is working on creating the conditions for the implementation of these actions, which will be reported and explained when they are ready for application. In this regard, she insisted on the need to be informed through official channels of this telecommunications entity.

“The first priority is the availability of services, then, their maintenance and growth” pointed out the Executive President and added, despite the limitations, ETECSA, with a group of trained, committed and innovative workers, we’ll carry onward.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSi Translation Staff