By Mingyuan Zhang, University of Western Ontario

“Just go outside and look for the zombies, then you will find Wi-fi,” a girl volunteering for the CASCA conference from Universidad de Oriente told me. As most of the millennials, I grew up in China with the Internet and quickly got used to the connectivity and convenience it provides. When I was in Grade Four, my father bought the first Lenovo desktop and connected it to a wall with a grey ethernet cable. After half an hour, I was so excited to set up my first Yahoo! email account, feeling like an independent yet novice netizen connecting to the world in a whole new way. Thereafter, my experience with the Internet mostly remains indoor and private. With the development of cellphones and cellular data, internet access has become mobile and ubiquitous. When I arrived in Santiago de Cuba, the first three things that I did was exchanging Canadian dollar into Cuban Peso at a bank, buying a bottle of water, and jumping in the line outside of an office of ETECSA – the monopoly telecommunications service provider for Cuba. It dawned on me that money, water and the Internet were my three “travel essentials.” Starving for Internet connection, I soon memorized my login code and password of my five-hour Internet card and joined the “zombie group” at Parque Cespedes – the central square at the heart of the historical area of Santiago de Cuba and one of the major public spots where Wi-fi signal is provided 24/7.

Although many foreigners do not mind spending 5 CUC (equals to 5 USD) to stay connected during their stay in Cuba, Internet access is still a luxury for ordinary Cubans: it is not cheap; it is not available anywhere or anytime; it is not mobile; and it is certainly not so private. Most government-run hotels or private discos/bars also provide Wi-fi, including Hotel Melia where many CASCA participants stayed during the conference. It was an easy walk from Santiago’s historical area to Hotel Melia. The fancy estate constitutes an exclusive world of it own, including Internet connection. ETECSA also provides the Wi-fi service at the hotel, however, the pre-paid Internet cards sold at other ETECSA offices in the city cannot be used to connect to the Hotel Melia Wi-fi. To use the Wi-fi at Melia, one must purchase the special Internet card at the hotel’s internet service desk located at a corner of the lobby. The card looked the same as those sold outside of the hotel. However, the price was quadrupled. In this sense, many Westerners who stay at high-end places such as Hotel Melia pay extra for their privileges.

After the CASCA conference, I traveled to Trinidad and Havana by bus and was amazed by the nation-wide pattern of Internet use in Cuba [See photos of Santiago de Cuba, Trinidad and Havana (Photo courtesy of Wenjia Wu)]. I observed several interesting aspects about how the Internet is used in Cuba in comparison with my experiences in Madagascar, China and Canada. First, people pay for the time of connection to the Internet rather than data usage. As a result, Internet users including me are more conscious about the total time that they spend instead of the activities they do online. It is very different from Madagascar where I spent 14 months doing my PhD fieldwork, as 3G signals are available almost everywhere in major cities but one has to frequently pay for extra data using the balance of the account associated with the mobile phone number. Thus, in Madagascar, sending photos or video chatting is almost an extravagant activity because it drains the cellular data too fast. Whereas in Cuba, the time countdown that pops up on the webpage each time one logs in the Internet account is a constant usher of any online activity. As a graduate student who always decries the Internet as the most addictive distraction in life, it is somehow an enjoyable experience to have time limits on Internet surfing.

Second, the Cuban way of using the Internet provides a unique and intriguing connection between telecommunication infrastructure and public space. The Cuban government has a long history of exercising state control over Internet access since its first direct connection in 1996 (Kalathil and Boas 2001). According to what my Cuban friends told me, access to the Internet through Wi-fi hotspots were made available to the public in the recent three years. The Wi-fi hotspots are usually located at public locations such as parks, squares and ETECSA offices. As such, historical sites, city symbols and community centres have become digital hubs or outdoor Internet cafés. The increasing number of cellphone users in Cuba has also contributed to the popularity of public space as Internet hubs: people sitting on the stairs outside of ETECSA offices or on the benches in front of the splendid church at Parque Cespedes, with their headphones on skyping their friends or relatives or refreshing their social media news feed.

Third, the Cuban government exercises control by limiting the location and time over Internet access, contrasting other forms of state control over Internet such as censorship over content practiced by countries like China. Further, the Cuban government exerts control by granting ETECSA the monopoly on Internet cards and prohibiting private sell and buy, contrasting numerous petty street venders in Madagascar making a pittance by selling phone credit cards and providing recharge services. Sometimes one can buy Internet cards from people peddling “illegal” Internet cards outside of the ETECSA offices. As such, echoing the “digital turn” of anthropology, Internet use in Cuba provides an interesting case for anthropologists to explore the intertwined relationship among the state, digital infrastructure and public space. As Horst and Miller (2006) point out in their study of cellphones in Jamaica, anthropologists are facing a renewed opportunity to consider the overall impact of telephony as a form of communication. The recent release of Internet access in Cuba might bring social influences remaining to be examined in the future.

People connecting to Wifi at Plaque Cespedes. Photo by Author

Bibliography

Horst, Heather A. and Daniel Miller, 2006, The Cellphone: An Anthropology of Communication. New York: Berg.

Kalathil, Shanthi and Taylor C. Boas, 2001, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba and the Counterrevolution.” First Monday 6(8), http://www.firstmonday.dk/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/876/785, accessed July 6, 2018