Statement by the collective “Socialists in Struggle”
On the morning of May 30, 2025, the Cuban people woke up to the news of a disproportionate increase in the prices of mobile telephone rates. The measure was applied without prior announcement by business authorities and government officials. With the drastic modifications, the company is in breach of point number seven of the prepaid cellular telephone service contract which states: “ETECSA will inform the client, thirty (30) calendar days in advance, of any modification in the conditions of service provision”. In this way, the company violates the contractual commitment established with the country’s consumers, which constitutes a legal violation of national scope.
ETECSA went from offering a minimum possibility of Internet access at a price of 110 Cuban pesos, its most popular option, to charge 11,760 pesos in national currency, which represents a difference of more than 10,000 percent, equivalent to multiplying the costs about 100 times in its maximum expression. The company is also reducing data caps to 6 GB per month, with extensions starting at 3,360 Cuban pesos, equivalent to 1.6 times the minimum wage or 2.2 basic pensions of a retired person.
This new outrage intends to compress the average consumption of the population, in order to promote payment in dollars through international charges or remittances. In the midst of such a complex scenario, with daily power outages that exceed 22 hours in communities in the interior of the country, Internet access is not only a legitimate entertainment option; it also represents an important mechanism for work, access to information sources and a communication channel in an island that suffers from a sustained migratory exodus of close to two million inhabitants between 2020-2025. For these reasons, this measure also affects the economy of family members living abroad, who face migratory challenges in an increasingly hostile global context for those who have such status.
This latest rate hike adds to the concert of anti-popular measures of neoliberal reforms promoted by the highest leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). The Government reaffirms its will to promote economic extractivism of a rentier nature instead of strengthening the productive capacities of the national industry in a way that leads to the valorization of employment and its reflection in the workers’ wages. The popular revolutionary solution against an impoverishing and authoritarian regime is the road to the reestablishment of justice and the well-being of the Cuban people.
