ETECSA acknowledged this Monday that the energy crisis has taken several of its systems out of service, directly affecting the Nauta navigation service and the electronic payment platform Transfermóvil, the two most commonly used digital services for Cubans.
Through a informative note published on its official Facebook page, the state telecommunications company warned that "different systems and technological equipment are currently interrupted due to energy issues, which is causing disruptions in browsing through the Nauta service, electronic payments via Transfermóvil, as well as the management of associated services."
The statement specified that mobile data navigation remains operational and that the company's specialists are assessing alternatives to restore the disrupted services.
ETECSA did not provide an estimated date for restoration nor detailed how many provinces or users were affected.
The company also warned that other institutions might experience impacts on their own services due to the same energy issue.
The notice arrives during an especially critical day for the Cuban electrical system. In Havana, reports from early Monday recorded 62 affected circuits and a 167 MW deficit at 3:30 AM, a figure that rose to 71 circuits and 169 MW just two and a half hours later.
The extreme blackouts have become common in Cuba. At least 23 out of the last 30 days exceeded the threshold of 2,000 MW of impact on the National Electric System (SEN).
The vulnerability of telecommunications to outages is structural and has been acknowledged by ETECSA throughout 2026.
The most serious incident occurred on September 18, when the eighth nationwide blackout of the year left over 80% of radio base stations out of service and nearly 70% of telecommunications cabinets, resulting in a 58% drop in internet traffic.
After that collapse, power outages put telecommunications in a tight spot and the company made a drastic decision: to halt the expansion of its access network to focus resources on the installation of photovoltaic panels.
However, progress in that regard is also slow. By the end of September, 64 municipal capitals had solar panels in their main centers. The most significant progress was in Pinar del Río, Villa Clara, Matanzas, and Granma, although that coverage does not ensure continuous service.
Transfermóvil and Nauta have experienced previous outages in recent months. The payment platform went down on September 2 due to SMS issues, and Nauta reported problems on August 17 following a fiber optic cut.
All of this is compounded by the fact that ETECSA has accumulated around 77,000 reports of interrupted fixed services, without the company announcing any compensations for users, despite the rate hike implemented in May 2025.
The company itself acknowledged in September that "it is not viable to continue investing to expand the access network if there is no capacity to support the telecommunications infrastructure with energy," an admission that summarizes the structural paralysis in which Cuba's state telecommunications monopoly operates.
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