FILE PHOTO: People wait in line to enter an Etecsa store, the Cuban state company that provides telephone and communications services, Havana, Cuba, February 9, 2023. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
HAVANA (Reuters) -Cuba said it would begin to offer additional mobile internet data plans at a sharply reduced price for students after an initial rate hike prompted outrage across an island already reeling from soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.
State-run telecommunications firm ETECSA last week capped subsidized data plans - offered at a steeply discounted rate of 360 pesos (just under $1 on the informal market exchange) - at 6 gigabytes, less than a third of the global average monthly usage per smartphone of 21.6 gigabytes, according to Swedish telecoms company Ericsson.
After that, newly announced prices for an additional three gigabytes soar to 3,360 pesos ($9), over half the average monthly wage of 5,839 pesos ($16).
Many plans are offered only in dollars - a currency out of reach for many Cubans - in a bid to tap the funds of relatives who have migrated abroad and wish to communicate with their families.
The rate hike struck a nerve with many Cubans - for whom the new data packages are inaccessible - prompting ETECSA on Monday evening to offer students an additional 6 gigabytes, for a total of 12, at the same discounted rate of 360 pesos ($1), easing tensions - but leaving many still in the lurch.
Andrea Curbelo, a 20-year-old art history student at the University of Havana said the additional discounted data package for students was appreciated but said all Cubans should be treated equal.
"All Cubans should have the same opportunity as we students to communicate with their families ... they should restructure the measure so that everyone has the same rights."
The continuing rift over the price of data plans in Cuba comes as the nation's communist-run government scrambles to raise funds amid the worst economic crisis to hit the island since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
The government says the rate hikes are necessary to update ailing telecommunications infrastructure in a country with some of the slowest internet connection speeds in the world, according to speedtest.net, an online service that measures bandwidth.
Danila Maria Hernandez, a 19-year-old Havana resident, said the government had struck a nerve raising prices amid the ongoing economic crisis.
"All we have left to distract ourselves is social media, a little internet, to get our minds off our problems," she said. "It's just not right."
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta; additional reporting by Alien Fernandez, Anett Rios and Dave Sherwood; Editing by Alistair Bell)
