Sprint and ETECSA sign ‘roaming’ service agreement
HAVANA — The first accord to set up ‘roaming’ service between Cuba and the United States was signed on Monday (Nov. 2) during the opening day of the Havana International Trade Fair.
Roaming is the ability of a cell phone or portable device to move from its own carrier’s network to another carrier’s network.
“Arriving in Cuba, American citizens and Cubans who come from the United States, who are clients of Sprint, may use their cell phones as if they were anywhere else in the world,” explained Bolivian-born Marcelo Claure, the company’s CEO and the only senior Hispanic in a U.S. telecommunications company.
The agreement will allow the more than 60 million Sprint users to initiate and receive calls, send and receive text messages (SMS) and transmit data over the ETECSA network.
[ETECSA stands for Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba, S.A., or Cuban Telecommunications Company Inc.]
Vivian Iglesias, ETECSA’s international operations director, said that on Sept. 22 both companies signed an agreement for phone connection between Cuba and the United States (using the ALBA-1 underwater cable system) that enables direct calls between the two countries.
“Service will begin once all the technical tests have been conducted and the details of the financial dealings have been clarified,” she said. Because of the U.S. blockade, payments for these services will continue to be made through third-country banks and in a currency other than the U.S. dollar.
“This is a very significant step, so that all other companies may follow us and do the same in telecommunications cooperation,” Claure said. “To me, connectivity is the most important tool for progress. Through it, we enable our people to gain access to the entire world.”
Addressing himself to ETECSA, the president of Sprint said that his clients demand a high-quality service.
“I am confident that our governments will come to an agreement to permit the free flow of Americans to Cuba,” he said. “The day that happens, this island will be in a place where every tourist in the world will want to see it. That day, I want all my clients at Sprint to come to Cuba and feel as they were in their own homeland.”
Claure confessed that some people told him that ETECSA, a state-owned company, would be a slow and bureaucratic partner, but the opposite occurred.
“We signed a connection agreement to eliminate the intermediaries, and the fact that we’re here 50 days later is, to Sprint, record time,” he said. The people at ETECSA “have been fast and efficient, a lot faster than most other telecommunications operators in the world.”
Based in Overland Park, Kan., Sprint is the third-ranking U.S. provider of wireless telecommunications, with its own 100-percent digital and fiber network.
In the opinion of numerous experts, telecommunications and finances are indispensable elements for the progress of relations between Cuba and the United States.
[Photo at top of Vivian Iglesias and Marcelo Claure signing for ETECSA and Sprint, respectively.]
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