Dozens of citizens staged a protest on Tuesday in front of the ETECSA office located in the Vista Alegre neighborhood of Santiago de Cuba, after the SIM cards that the state-owned company had begun selling ran out in just a few minutes, following several months of absence in official sales outlets.
The situation was reported on Facebook by independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, who explained that the day before, ETECSA had started a limited sale of SIM cards at various offices and locations in the province.
The official price was set at 1,000 Cuban pesos, while in the informal market, these same cards are resold for up to 10,000 pesos, a difference that reflects the prolonged scarcity and lack of control in the distribution of a highly demanded resource that is essential for communication.
According to the images and testimonies received by the communicator, the office in Vista Alegre initially informed the public that there were 100 SIM cards available.
However, when only 43 people had moved forward in line, a worker came out to announce that the product was sold out.
The abrupt change of version triggered immediate complaints from those who had been waiting for hours in the sun, many of whom refused to leave the site until it was ensured that the 100 people announced as beneficiaries would receive assistance.
In light of the rising tension and evident public dissatisfaction, ETECSA workers requested the presence of nearby police and military to control the crowd.
In the video shared by Mayeta, a group of people can be seen gathered in front of the office door, while shouts of "shameless!" and the question "where are they?" can be heard, alongside a woman's voice mentioning a list.
All of this is nothing more than a demonstration of the organizational chaos and the lack of transparency in service management.
The incident once again places in the spotlight the inefficiency of a state-owned company that maintains the monopoly on telecommunications in Cuba, as well as the government's inability to ensure regular access to an essential service.
The gap between the official price and the black market not only highlights chronic scarcity but also a system that ultimately forces citizens to pay disproportionate amounts for a basic right: communication.
The reactions in the post came swiftly.
From Havana, a resident described the absurd chain of procedures involved in acquiring and activating a mobile line: first, waiting in line to buy the SIM, then discovering that it cannot connect, returning to ETECSA, and finally going to another office to complete an additional process that takes just minutes. "What's the title of the play? Bureaucracy," she quipped.
In Santiago, other comments pointed directly to corruption and institutional disorder.
One resident stated that, following the outbreak of the protest, they deployed an additional 100 officers in an attempt to calm the crowd.
Another stated that many cards "are left right there and are resold," and pointed to the system itself as responsible for "wanting to control and not controlling anything."
There were also those who reported the lack of dial tone on landlines for over a month, without receiving any concrete solutions.
The criticism extended to the overall quality of service.
A doctor labeled ETECSA as "a useless and thieving company," and compared Cuban prices to those of other countries where a SIM card costs only a dollar or is even given away at airports.
A young person summed up the general sentiment with a blunt statement: "They provide the worst paid service in the world."
The incident in Vista Alegre is not an isolated event, but rather an expression of accumulated dissatisfaction with a model that combines monopoly, inefficiency, scarcity, and a lack of transparency.
In a country where connectivity is increasingly essential for work, study, and staying informed, the state's inability to ensure regular access to mobile networks becomes another sign of the deterioration of public services and the direct impact that poor government decisions have on the daily lives of citizens.
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