While sketching widely anticipated, new rules that will ease U.S. citizens’ trips and money-transfers to Cuba, the Obama administration today announced that domestic telecom companies can apply for licenses to do business in the Caribbean island nation.
As Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal reports
here, citing an unnamed administration official, the new rules will allow U.S. telecom companies to set up TV and mobile phone services in Cuba.
“The move is part of an effort to open access to the Cuban people,” Meckler reports. “The initiative also includes lifting of long-standing restrictions on family travel and remittances to the island. Family will be loosely defined as a third-degree relative, a definition that was in place during the Clinton administration that extends to second cousins. The money can go to any Cuban, unless he or she is a senior government official.”
The changes to rules for family travel and remittances were expected, but the telecom changes – aimed to facilitate links between the United States and Cuba through fiber-optic, satellite and roaming agreements – were not.
Business opportunities aside, not all involved in telecom are jumping for joy at the news.
“Maybe I have these old-fashioned romantic ideas about doing the right thing, but I find it hard to stomach the decision by the administration to allow U.S. companies to do business with a Castro regime still incarcerates hundreds of prisoners of conscience, and that continues to engage in human rights violations there,” TMC’s (
News -
Alert) Greg Galitzine writes
here in his blog.
Reuters (
News -
Alert) reports
here that the changes are expected to boost the flow of information to the communist-ruled island.
“We stand on the side of having more information rather than less information reach the Cuban people,” Dan Restrepo, a special assistant to Obama, told a news briefing, according to Reuters.
In Cuba, the communications industry adds another piece to a rapidly growing market in the Caribbean/Latin American region. It isn’t clear just what infrastructure Cuba needs now or how U.S. telcos will make inroads there.
What is clear is that Cuba-Americans – allowed to travel to Cuba just once every three years under the Bush administration – likely will go to their native country far more often. The Obama administration is also allowing Americans to send a broader range of gifts to Cuba, such as clothing, personal-hygiene items and medicine for humanitarian aid.
“The president wants to support the Cuban people’s desire to more freely determine their own future and lessen their dependence on the regime, and believes this gives them the space needed to see democratic progress in Cuba,” the administration official reportedly told the Associated Press.
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Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by
Michael Dinan
