Mobile email demand disrupts cellular service, but ETECSA is growing

Last week we reported on "growing pains" for mobile email as reported in Granma, but a new Washington Post (AP) story elaborates upon the problems. They report that the new mobile email service has performed poorly and also disrupted the regular voice call and text message service. (the story in Spanish here).

The report presents several anecdotes along with discussion of the high price of mobile service and ETECSA's business. Most interesting was a statement by Emilio Morales of the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group that 54 percent of mobile payments to ETECSA come from the Cuban diaspora, mostly in the US, and that a new class of roughly 400,000 independent businessmen and their employees make heavy use of cellphones for advertising with text-message as well as ordinary business calls. It seems that in spite of growing pains, ETECSA is a growing source of hard currency.