A Simple Cuban Invention to Have Internet
You need a bamboo stick and 10 meters of cable
Cuban antennas are made of aluminum and plastic, and have become the queens of rooftops.
HAVANA TIMES – At first glance, they look like gadgets from a science fiction movie. Made from aluminum and plastic pieces and perched on top of a long bamboo pole, these antennas for amplifying 4G signal have become the queens of the rooftops in Cuba. Born of scarcity and ingenuity, they are the stars of the latest chapter in the Cuban fight against Etecsa, the communications monopoly on the Island.
Walking around Holguin in search of an antenna can, in fact, become a plot out of Star Wars or Dune. The setting is a planet in ruins: ramshackle buildings, oppressive heat and unfriendly faces. When you finally get – by way of acquaintances and contacts – the details of an “inventor”, you have to pay between 4,500 and 5,000 pesos to take home the gadget along with its cable.
You have no choice. No antenna means no internet, and no internet means no entertainment. The weight of reality without that little six-inch screen – a portal to entire galaxies of escape – is too suffocating. If the antenna is effective, the mental anesthesia is greater.
Getting the device in parts is another adventure. The coaxial cable costs 110 pesos a meter and it takes quite a bit of height -about 10 meters, if you add a house and the almost three meters of the rod- to get an improved signal. The pole, a long bamboo cane or a branch similar to the one used to cut guavas in backyards, can be obtained in one of the fields near the city.
Next to one of Etecsa’s antenna-towers, the home-made devices look a little pitiful. But what they lack in technology they make up in numbers: most neighbourhoods have two or three of these stakes, with the device on top: a shaft with small circular brass attachments, pointing to the source of the signal. In theory, although antenna manufacturing is not an exact science, it works.
The Cubans raising their antennas today are the successors of those who, until very recently, painstakingly sanded aluminum tubes, made a booster and hoisted heavy devices to pick up U.S. television. Many did not even understand English, but that succession of commercials, talk shows and car dealership ads was enough to thrill anyone who looked at the Panda’s screen.
There were plenty of “radio aficionado” groups, who took advantage of a kind of state-sanctioned loophole to traffic in cables and parts under the guise of being radio enthusiasts. Adapted to the times they live in, Cubans now form “antenna groups” on WhatsApp or Facebook, where, like in space taverns, they share ideas and tricks to perfect their inventions.
What happens in Holguín happens everywhere in Cuba. Even if the coverage is on the ground, if you place the phone on the attachment connected to the antenna -a rustic base with a small metal contact- the cell phone acquires superpowers. Or at least the Cuban equivalent of a superpower: having Internet despite Etecsa.
Translated by GH for Translating Cuba