Americans who have traveled to Cuba, have seen a beautiful country with crumbling buildings, unreliable electrical power and hard-to-access internet. However, they have also met the creative, dynamic and resourceful Cuban people. It therefore does not come as a surprise that despite the infrastructure challenges of life in the Island country, Cubans have eagerly embraced what they can of the internet. Growth in this sector has given birth to a nascent software and internet community that has been dubbed Azucar Valley (Sugar Valley).
For the most part, the internet in Cuba is accessed through mobile devices and public Wi-Fi hotspots. Outside of government or educational institutions, computers and wired internet connections are the exception rather than the norm. Internet access is normally purchased in the form of scratch-off cards of different values sold by the Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba (ETECSA). The card contains a long string of numbers that must be entered into the login page every time you want to access the internet. The speed is usually dismally slow. Despite the unwieldy and inconvenient way in which internet access is obtained on the island, it is not unusual to be walking on the streets of Havana and suddenly find yourself surrounded by hundreds of people intently tapping away on their phones.
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