calls from Cuba and from Cuba are the most expensive in the world.
ETECSA, short for Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba SA
By: Ivan Garcia Ask any person in Cuba, which would work, most likely the answer is in ETECSA, short for Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba SA Why pay high wages and, above all, the higher premiums in foreign currency. No big deal. You will continue to live in cramped, but if an engineer can charge over 600 dollars and about 28 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC).
Together, they make 1,250 pesos a month salary that does not become one on the island. ETECSA pay levels in cuc ranging from 18 to a cleaning, up to 35 CUC, a manager. Despite being a state rule that has no competition, does not provide an efficient service.
emerged in 1994 as a joint venture with foreign capital and facade of a corporation. His first business partner was the Mexican company Domes. But the Aztecs preferred doing business with telecommunications giant neighbors to the north, following the FTA with the United States and Canada, may have an interest in this great cake that are internet services and mobile telephony. Fidel Castro
dollars needed as the air we breathe. At that time, the country was in the special period. People were hungry and rafters in the thousands. Cuba threatened to become the Caribbean North Korea. It was a pot about to explode. So much misery, caused the popular pop Maleconazo known as the August 5, 1994.
And Castro, who has no hair fool, knew that something must be done if he wanted his government was adrift. He released the self-employment, agricultural markets and allowed opened business with foreign companies.
These measures have made possible the emergence of ECTESA. Then when he turned Mexican Dome back in mid-1995 an Italian group, became involved in the business. But we had to roll up their sleeves. The work was arduous. Cuban communications were in the age of prehistory.
Before the arrival of Castro to power in 1959, and mobile communications were in the hands of U.S. companies. They were efficient and modern. And he predicted that the number of telephones per capita grew so unusual in major cities. According to a statistical yearbook of the time, in 1958 Cuba ranked third in population over the phone, with 28, second only to Argentina, with 17 and Uruguay, with 25.
But with his radical revolution, Castro nationalized all U.S. property. One of the first was the Cuban Telephone Company, operated on 3 March 1959. When the Eisenhower administration in 1960 imposed a trade embargo on Cuba (the embargo was imposed in February 1962), the Phone different plants began to languish due to lack of spare parts. In the Soviet Union, Hungary, Yugoslavia and East Germany started to buy components and equipment. Usually outdated and of poor quality.
telephony maintained its numbers to a minimum. Barely grew in the period between 1966 and 1994. The plants were analog telephone and the lower shower or lightning, thousands of phone pairs fell into inactivity. Then, there was little money needed to modernize the local telephony.
Sure, the Italians were not fools. Iban to invest their money in the only existing telecommunications in Cuba. They had no rival. And if two million Cubans scattered through the world, especially in the United States, who at the weekend, eager and wistful, used to call their relatives on the other side.
and got down to work. At first, the Cuban government gave the Italians a 49 percent in company stock. Then it decreased to 29 percent. Meanwhile, all the plants were digitized telephone in the country. Infrastructure was upgraded outdoor plants. And in general, were implanted technologies appropriate to the times.
If in 1998 Cuba was able to connect to the Internet, was partly thanks to the group Italian investor, who also entered the mobile country. Another achievement was the ostensible improvement of working conditions of workers. While in 1995 the people went hungry and the island was falling apart, ETECSA employees were assigned dollar 1.50 for lunch daily. In addition, healthy snacks and crates (bags) with toiletries, which in 2004 ousted Carlos Lage were removed, with the tired excuse that increased the gap with the rest of the workers.
With Silver Italian businessmen, ECTESA was modernized and expanded service in arrow. Of 6.3 telephones per 100 inhabitants was in 1996 in Havana, rose to 18.5 in 2009. It is still a low figure compared with other Latin American nations. But the reality is that in thirteen years, the capacity is tripled. Another reality is that European investors, the rogue state dollars was paid in salary empleomania.
For example, an engineer or specialist, the employer disbursing $ 2,000 to the government so that it will pay the employee part, which could be half or a third party. But it is known that the Cuban regime hates it when people have money and be "rich." And in a new kind of slavery of them remunerated with 600 pesos in national currency and 35 CUC convertible currency. Es decir, un total de 60 dólares, de 1.000 o 600 dólares que supuestamente debería devengar como salario.
Los mejor pagados de Cuba
De cualquier manera, a pesar deldescarado robo estatal, los empleados de ETECSA, junto a los de del Instituto de Aeronáutica Civil, son los mejores pagados de Cuba. Por su contubernio con los Castro en esta explotación laboral, la empresa italiana recibió numerosas criticas de organismos internacionales y medios de prensa. Claro, se hicieron de oídos sordos. Las cajas registradoras rebosaban. El negocio marchaba.
Pero como casi siempre sucede cuando se hacen negocios con sociedades totalitarias, donde son los gobernantes y no empresarios privados quienes controlan the performance of a corporation, in early 2009, and Italian investors were not viewed favorably by its native partner.
La Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba is an emporium of 16,000 workers who consume fuel resources and so outrageous. And the lack of controls, typical in centrally planned economies, maintain any business is like throwing money into a black hole. Ladino so one could think that European investors had already left the shed assembly. Then, little feet to the street. And the Italians had to make their packages. ETECSA
generates profits of hundreds of millions in hard currency. Officials tried to call the company, for data in this regard. After asking in a tone of suspicion who spoke on the other side of the line, responded that such information was confidential. "The embargo, the Yankees, you know."
should not be an economist to do the math
But do not be an economist to do the math. And with the internet one can find that when the November 12 Miami federal judge, Alexander King, asked the Federal Court in New York the execution of the sentence against the frozen funds belonging to EmtelCuba for payment of 187 million dollars, money that the judge wanted to use as compensation to the families of the victims of the demolition of four planes of anti-Castro group in international waters by warplanes revolutionary air force, the Cuban Council of Ministers agreed to further expensive cost of calls to the U.S..
The world's most expensive calls
The decree-law number 213 of October 20, 2000, per minute call, the Havana government put a tax of 0.245 dollars to the users for connections telephone with the United States. In fact, calls from Cuba and from Cuba are the most expensive in the world. In a depressed economy like ours, the leaders struggle with rage when the greenback get the enemy. And when the only telecommunications company, ETECSA leaves a tasty slice.
Your future is not clear. Have tried similar agreements with China and Russia. Nothing has been finalized. It is known that the lack of liquidity of the Cuban economy makes it very difficult for any serious investment in the telecommunications industry. This could bring a return to what has been achieved in the country. Just one of the most dynamic sectors in the world.
Almost all hard currency that enters the cash registers ETECSA is mobile, that despite how expensive the service (a line is 40 cuc, three months' wages of a skilled worker) has grown rapidly after in 2008, Gen. Raul Castro allow Cubans to have cell phones. Also by way of international calls into the country several hundred million dollars or euros. For now, the company's workers have seen their wages reduced by way of stimulation in Cuban pesos.
Waiting for a partner who wants to do business with Castro, many Cubans wonder when internet will be a very expensive luxury (5 cuc time is cheap) and will lower tariffs for calls mobile phones. 2010 may give some answers. Otherwise, we will continue to Busy.