The grandfather of the young Cuban Lauren Daniela became the center of attention on social media this Monday as he showcased, step by step, how he built a homemade antenna with aluminum cans to improve the 4G internet signal in Cuba.
"Look at what my grandfather did so I can post my videos," Lauren says at the beginning of the reel shared on Instagram, where the elderly man explains the manufacturing process with the ease of someone who has been solving problems with what's at hand for years.
The man used sheets and cans of aluminum —including beer cans— along with tubes of the same material for the dividers and coaxial cable to connect the device. "I know how to do it with this material, but since I didn't have enough, I had to finish with the beer can," the grandfather explains during the video, which lasts one minute and 13 seconds.
The most revealing aspect of the story is not only the ingenuity of the process but also a detail that Lauren casually mentions: "In Cuba, these antennas are sold on the street, but my grandfather decided to make it himself." This means that the handmade solution already has its own informal market on the island.
At the end of the video, the antenna works. "It works! The invention worked!" celebrates Lauren, while her grandfather climbs up to the roof to install it pointed towards the nearest cell tower.
This type of Cuban inventions to capture ETECSA signal are not new. In July 2024, Cubans in Holguín used a pressure cooker lid connected by coaxial cable to a wooden box as a parabolic reflector to improve the internet signal.
During Hurricane Melissa, in October 2025, a Cuban in Holguín crafted a homemade antenna using household materials to maintain the connection despite the winds and rain. And in September 2025, a Cuban family managed to get internet during a blackout with an improvised base for their cell phone.
Since late 2023, moreover, videos have been circulating of Cubans placing their cell phones in cut and modified plastic bottles to capture signal in areas with minimal coverage.
The backdrop of such creativity is the structural precariousness of the service. ETECSA, the state telecommunications monopoly, operates a network where 76% of terminals support 4G, but the actual quality of service is poor: 80% of the submarine cable capacity is already consumed, investments are not keeping pace with traffic, and prolonged blackouts directly affect the radio bases. The national average speed hovers around 27 Mbps, with frequent instability during peak hours.
The popular response to that precariousness has a specific name. "Cuban ingenuity knows no bounds," wrote Lauren Daniela in the description of her reel, a phrase that her followers turned into the perfect summary of what the video showcases.
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