Internet in Cuba

The internet in Cuba covers telecommunications in Cuba including the Cuban grassroots wireless community network and Internet censorship in Cuba.

Since its introduction in the late 1990s, Cuban Internet has stalled because of lack of funding, tight government restrictions, and the U.S. embargo, especially the Torricelli Act. Starting in 2007 this situation began to slowly improve, with 3G data services rolling out island-wide in 2018, and 4G since 2019, albeit through a government-monitored network. On July 29, 2019, Cuba legalized private WiFi in homes and businesses. According to website DataReportal, in 2022, 68% of the Cuban population had access to the Internet.

History

In September 1996, Cuba's first connection to the Internet, a 64 kbit/s link to Sprint in the United States, was established. After this initial introduction, the expansion of Internet access in Cuba stagnated. Despite a lack of consensus on the specific reasons, the following appear to be major factors:

Lack of funding, owing to the poor state of the Cuban economy after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Cuban government's fear that foreign investment would undermine national sovereignty (in other words, foreign investors putting Cuba up for sale).

The U.S. embargo, which delayed construction of an undersea cable, and made computers, routers, and other equipment prohibitively expensive and therefore difficult to obtain.

According to Boris Moreno Cordoves, Deputy Minister of Informatics and Communications, the Torricelli Act (part of the United States embargo against Cuba) identified the telecommunications sector as a tool for subversion of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and the necessary technology has been conditioned by counter-revolutionaries.