The comedian and actor Ulises Toirac published an open letter on Wednesday in a sarcastic tone addressed to ETECSA, the state telecommunications monopoly, demanding that it reinvest the massive profits accumulated after the rate hike of 2025 or, alternatively, allow Starlink to enter Cuba.
In the text published on his Facebook profile, dated ironically as "Year of decisive disbalance," Toirac directly addresses the money sent by the Cuban diaspora to support their family members on the island: "You are contributing to the popular outrage, think about it: If you were functioning properly, investing all the funds that have been sent to you by the Cubans living abroad who maintain the accounts of the dying ones (that is, us)... all that money you have pocketed after the rate hike."
The comedian draws a parallel with the Electric Union (UNE), which, after acknowledging its inability to ensure electricity supply, ended up lifting the ban on importing photovoltaic solar panels.
"Give in, like the UNE, which said, 'I can't, I'm not capable of providing power, you do it yourselves,' and lifted the ban on photovoltaic plants THAT WERE PROHIBITED (I don't know if you remember that they couldn't be brought in, and it wasn't because of the blockade)... Let people buy their Starlink, and get rid of that overhead burden," writes Toirac.
The proposal has a clear political backdrop: if ETECSA cannot provide a decent service, it should give way to private alternatives, just as UNE did with solar energy.
Toirac also questions that the company doesn't even maintain benefits for its own workers: "You don't even provide good service for regular telephone service!" He concludes with a direct demand regarding the pending investments: "Come on, girl, then loosen the purse strings! You don’t have to take it from any other company like the others do... you have it!... Add equipment to the towers, increase the real capacities. Invest my life, because you can’t collect with just a gun, my girl!"
The criticism comes with figures to support it. In the first 46 days following the price increase in May 2025, ETECSA collected over 24.8 million dollars —about 540,000 dollars daily, according to Prime Minister Manuel Marrero. However, the service did not improve: Cuba recorded just 7.21 Mbps in the global speed index of Speedtest in May 2026, among the lowest in the region.
The infrastructure also cannot withstand the blackouts. The mobile network also goes down because the backup batteries of the towers only function for a few hours during power outages. After the total blackout in March 2026, internet traffic fell by 65% and took 29 hours to be restored.
Starlink, for its part, remains prohibited in Cuba. The regime considers it illegal without authorization from the Ministry of Communications, and Cuban customs once again confiscated Starlink equipment at the airport last June. New regulations approved in 2026 reinforced this prohibition.
The post is accompanied by a photograph that encapsulates the paradox: a dilapidated building in Havana, with peeling paint and a clothesline, where a Starlink antenna prominently stands out on the balcony next to a handcrafted sign that reads "Room for rent."
It is not the first time that Toirac has gone after ETECSA. Last July, he demanded explanations regarding the destination of the collected funds, and in June, he publicly asked where the money from the rate increase was. The state-owned company has, until now, not responded to any of these inquiries.
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