HAVANA — Cuban authorities said Tuesday that they would begin offering public Internet access at more than 100 cybersalons across the island, where residential access is greatly restricted.  Starting next Tuesday, people can sign up with the state telecom company Etecsa for temporary or permanent accounts to use at one of the 118 centers, according to a measure enacted with its publication in the government’s Official Gazette.  An official newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, said new areas for Internet navigation would gradually be incorporated.  Until now, the Internet has been limited to places like tourist hotels, which charge $8 an hour for Wi-Fi; foreign-run companies; and some sectors of Cuban business and government. Home dial-up accounts are rare and restricted.  According to government statistics, only 2.9 percent of Cubans said they had access to the Web — though significant underreporting appears likely. About 16 percent were able to go partway online via a domestic intranet and e-mail, often through workplace or school hookups or places like computer clubs and post offices.  “Great! I knew this was coming,” said Camila Delgado, a 44-year-old shop worker in Havana, though she added: “There’s still a ways to go to be like everywhere else on the planet. We don’t have access at home, and the prices are prohibitive.”  Indeed, some scoffed at the new computer centers’ price tag of $4.50 an hour. That is a stiff fee when state salaries average about $20 per month, although there are an array of subsidized goods and services.  “It’s a real bargain,” said a user on the state news Web site Cuba Si who gave the name Osvaldo Ulloa. “I mean, I work for a week and then I can get online for hour — fabulous.”  Even for those who are already able to access the wider Internet, some sites are censored for pornographic or politically objectionable content. It was not clear whether the new service would block such sites, and neither the Gazette nor Juventud Rebelde mentioned the issue.  Officials say that the limitations are due mostly to technical reasons, and that Cuba has the obligation to prioritize its limited capacity for things that benefit the public good, like research and work centers or universities.  Earlier this year, Cuba began sending and receiving data traffic through a fiber-optic cable strung from Venezuela in 2011 that provided the island’s first hard-wired Internet connection to the outside world.  Expanding connectivity options for Cubans “is consistent with Cuba’s stated strategy of continuing to facilitate more and more access to new technologies, depending on the availability of resources and with a focus that favors social use,” Juventud Rebelde said. The paper added that the new service was possible thanks to the Venezuela cable.
The authorities planned to provide public Internet access at 118 new cybersalons, but for many ordinary Cubans, the hourly fee added up to nearly a week’s salary.