MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Hello Miami: Long lines in Cuba for cellular phones

Hundreds of Cubans queued for blocks outside phone stores on Monday to sign up for cellular phone service for the first time. Contracts cost about 120 US dollars and do not include a phone or credit to make and receive calls.

When ailing Fidel Castro was in full control of Cuba, the government limited access to cell phones as well as kitchen appliances, hotels and other luxuries in an attempt to preserve the relative economic equality of the island's Marxist oriented policies. However president Raul Castro has pledged to do away these small but infuriating restrictions on daily life, and his popularity has surged as a result. Peasants working small plots of land have also been given access to tools, seeds and other modern agriculture instruments. The new phone contracts allow Cubans to make and receive overseas calls, a key feature because the overwhelming majority of Cubans have relatives and friends in the United States. More than a million Cubans live in Miami and the state of Florida. Only foreigners and Cubans holding key government posts were allowed to have cell phones since they first appeared on the island in 1991. Thousands of ordinary Cubans had already obtained mobile phones through the black market, but could activate them only by finding foreigners willing to lend their names to the contracts. A March 28 announcement by Cuba's state-controlled telecommunications monopoly, a joint venture with Telecom Italia, made it legal for all Cubans to have phones in their own name.