Cuba finally gets public WiFi after years of waiting, and the government surprises residents with fast hotspots in no less than thirty-five places. It’s not free WiFi, but still a great improvement over previous Internet access on the island. In North Korea, the news is not so good. The government has gone after social media users, blacklisting accounts after recently banning flash drives and various content at airports.
WiFi for Cuban Public
Cubanos have mostly relied on expensive Internet cafes called Youth Computer Clubs for Internet access. They would pay about four dollars and fifty cents per hour at these government run cafes, the equivalent of over a fourth of the average monthly salary in the country. Other than this, Internet access has been only available to high ranking government employees and the wealthy. Now the Cuban people can use any of 35 WiFi zones spread out over the country. These hotpots are not free, but the cost to use the Internet there has been reduced to two dollars an hour. This is still too expensive for many, but is a big step forward compared to what has been available in the past. There are also plans to bring the Internet to more homes using ADSL. Currently, only a little more than three percent of homes have Internet connections.
Each of the newly launched WiFi hotspots on the island of Cuba reportedly runs at a speed of one megabit per second. In total, the hotspots can handle the traffic of between 1,750 to 3,500 users, depending on what they are doing online. Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (Telecommunications Company of Cuba) representative Luis Manuel Diaz Naranjo says that Cubans are making the most of this new and more affordable access. After only a couple of weeks, there is already a marked rise in the use of Facebook by netizens on their tablets and smartphones. Cuba will no longer be known as one of the countries with the worst Internet access rating in the world. The speed at which the new hotspots have filled up is amazing, and Cubans will soon have to prepare themselves for inevitable hacks with VPNs and mobile security packages.
Cuba has been encouraged by diplomatic talks and private interests to open up, beginning with better Internet access for the people. Now that the country has come to a happy agreement with the US on the opening of embassies, Cuba has shown that it is willing to let go of a few of the long standing ideals that it held under communist rule. Private companies like Google have also been lobbying the government to loosen up on Internet access restrictions. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, living out the Google philosophy on dealing with repression, even went to Cuba last year to give government officials and tech industry leaders a presentation. Along with a team of Google executives, he talked to them about how freer Internet access is a good thing for the Cuban economy. Combined with Google’s tips for a quick solution to broader Internet access in the country, the government has apparently been persuaded to release their chokehold on the Net.
North Korea
As Cuba has taken a step towards the light, fellow communist nation North Korea has chosen to relentlessly pursue anyone who dares oppose the government’s decision to keep the people in the dark. Numerous North Korean netizens have found their social media accounts blacklisted in the past weeks with accusations from the country’s Internet watchdogs that they have been using these networks to spread harmful material. Just a few weeks before this crackdown, foreign visitors were surprised by a new directive that prohibits them from bringing any flash drives into the country. The ban on so-called undesirable content was not so surprising, since communist countries have long banned pornography and other material (a.k.a. false propaganda) that conflicts with political ideals.
So far, users of such popular platforms as Tumblr, Instagram and Flickr, as well as readers of South Korean news agency Yonhap, have discovered the blocks. A big warning message pops up whenever someone tries to access a blacklisted site. Some analysts suspect that this most recent crackdown on social media is the government’s way of preventing bad publicity. Last month, there was a fire in a Pyongyang hotel, one which often caters to foreign visitors. A few guests who were there at the time posted pictures of the incident on Instagram. This would normally not be a big deal, but North Korea is so concerned with maintaining a perfect image of itself so that it can continue to control the people. The media was therefore understandably horrified by the threat that the news would leak out. So the theory is that the government swooped in to save the day by banning Instagram and other social networking sites. Most people in North Korea are still without access to the Internet, but this move shows that the government is taking no chances with controlling what types of information are getting past its borders.
