02 November 2022 | For: Institutional Communication Department
The economic damages caused by the blockade of the communications and information technology sector, including telecommunications in Cuba, during the period (January to July 2021, 37 million 530 thousand 570 USD) (update to the report for the period August 2021 to February 2022, 104 million 155 thousand 170 USD); Total: 141 million 675 thousand 740 USD.
The main damages have been associated with the limitations or prohibitions on the supply of technologies and equipment produced under license or using US components, which implies that it is necessary to go to purchases in other, much more distant markets; the monetary-financial effects caused by exchange variations and the refusal of banks to carry out transactions with Cuba; effects on production and services due to higher equipment repair costs, since it cannot be done directly with the supplier and manufacturers in the United States; and the difficulties in accessing computer tools, which are essential for training and the production of national software content.
The blockade constitutes the main impediment to a better flow of information and broader access to the Internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs) by Cubans.
By making connectivity in the country more difficult and more expensive, conditioning access to platforms and technologies, and using cyberspace to try to subvert the Cuban political and legal system, this policy negatively affects the development of communications in Cuba.
Among the limitations registered in this sphere, the following stand out:
Companies that produce equipment with US components, or that have a strong presence in that market, continually face various restrictions on their operations with Cuba. This has generated an increase in costs and has made the logistics operations of Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. more complex. (ETECSA), causing an affectation of 26 million 611 thousand dollars for this concept.
Since interconnections with international operators cannot be made directly in the United States, where the main interconnection nodes are located, ETECSA is obliged to extend the international network with nodes in the United Kingdom, Jamaica and Venezuela, which entails executing expenses for an amount of 8 million 145 thousand 800 dollars.
For Cuban software developers, most of them young, the blockade represents the impossibility of placing products and applications created for the Android operating system in Google's PlayStore. To register as a developer on this platform and position an application, you need to pay a minimum fee, which is impossible since you cannot carry out transactions with US banks from Cuba. Even if this payment were made, Cuban developers would not be able to receive the income generated by each download of their application in the PlayStore, since this requires having an account with a virtual payment processor that can carry out the transaction (PayPal, for example). ). This is not possible given the restrictions of the blockade.
This sector was also affected by the restrictions imposed on access from Cuba to the digital platforms Zoom, Cisco Webex, Interprefy, among others, preventing the participation under equal conditions of Cuban representatives in numerous international events organized in the virtual modality.