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The Online Services portal of the Telecommunications Company of Cuba S.A. ( ETECSA) has received a nomination for the 2026 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as reported by Cuban News Agency on Saturday. The official press described it as a "historic nomination." The millions of Cubans who have been facing daily struggles to make a call or load a webpage likely have a different opinion.
According to the official note, the platform tienda.etecsa.cu "stands out among more than 1,500 projects registered worldwide, of which only 360 were selected." The ACN omits that these 360 projects are just in the preselection phase: from there, only 90 reach the Champions category and only 18 receive the final award, which will be presented on July 6, 2026 at the CMSI Forum. ETECSA is currently in the first round.
The online public voting to advance the process closes this Tuesday, May 5, and the company asks for the "support of the Cuban public" because, according to itself, this "represents a boost to the digital transformation that directly benefits the entire Cuban society." For Cubans to vote online for ETECSA implies, of course, that they first manage to connect.
The portal was developed by "a team of young professionals" using the agile Scrum methodology and launched in January 2022. The ACN asserts that this development "means less time spent in lines and greater convenience for managing telecommunications services from home." A beautiful promise for those who, in practice, report poor connectivity and lack of response from the only telecommunications company in the country when faced with any issues.
The reality of the service that ETECSA offers daily is quite far from the international standard. Cuba has an internet speed of just 7.21 Mbps according to the Speedtest Global Index, placing it among the slowest connections in the world and at the very bottom in Latin America. The state monopoly faces no competition: if the service is poor, the user has nowhere else to turn.
That’s not to mention that in the face of any social protest, the conglomerate completely cuts off communication to prevent people from connecting, reporting state repression, and organizing to confront it.
The rates do not help either. A plan of 3 GB of mobile data costs 3,360 Cuban pesos per month, in a country where the average salary was 6,649 pesos in 2025. This means that a month of internet costs more than half a month's work. Since May 2025, additionally, ETECSA limited top-ups in national currency to a maximum of 360 CUP per month, forcing users to pay in dollars if they want more data. The measure generated a wave of outrage that led many Cubans to explode against the price hike.
Technical failures are not just anecdotes. In June 2025, over 60,000 landline connections in Pinar del Río were out of service for two days following a failure in the telephone exchange, and only half were restored days later. In February of this year, users reported instability in Nauta service recharges, even being unable to view their available balance. Some customers in Havana have been waiting for more than a year for their telephone line to be repaired.
When users report issues, they receive automated responses indicating that their areas have "already been reported," without any solutions being implemented. And if someone wants to make a call abroad, ETECSA's international roaming costs up to 3 dollars per minute, a rate effective from January 29, 2026.
In August 2025, when the company raised the minimum recharge amount, the headline that captured the popular sentiment was striking: “More cynical, impossible!”. That phrase, more than any international nomination, reflects the true relationship between ETECSA and the Cubans who rely on it every day.
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