By Yeny Garcia

Havana, Sep 28 (EFE).– Over the past three months, Cuba has experienced an unprecedented, albeit limited, increase in access to the Internet, with 35 new Wi-Fi hot spots popping up, thrilling Cubans and enticing many people to find creative ways to provide services by finding a way around the rules.

Many “bisneros,” as street vendors are known, are taking advantage of state-owned telecommunications company Etecsa’s inability to provide a stable supply of service cards, as well as high taxes and a lack of savvy among new users, to meet demand with not-so-legal services.

“It’s just like it has always been: we try to solve problems as best we can without paying much attention to the means,” Gerardo, a young man who was setting up shop on a bench near Old Havana’s San Rafael Boulevard, told EFE.

“The issue is to solve the problem, get connected,” he said.

And for Cubans “to solve” something means doing whatever is required, even in defiance of restrictions.

Gerardo said that “the world moves through the Internet” and access to the Web brings “many benefits for Cubans,” even if for some it is still difficult to pay two Cuban convertible pesos, or CUC, which are pegged to the U.S. dollar one-to-one, to go online.

“The price is too high because one hour is not enough, and besides, the connection is slow, drops, then you need to reconnect, and ultimately this is not economically viable for us,” Gerardo said.

Cuba ranks among the countries with the world’s lowest rates of Internet connectivity, with only 5 percent of the population having access to the Web and a mere 1 percent able to access the Web via broadband connections.

Cubans’ eagerness to surf the Web has led to roughly 55,000 connections at each of the 35 Wi-Fi hotspots across the island, with about 8,000 of them simultaneous, official figures show.

Scalping cards, usually at 3 CUC – one CUC above the official price – risks “having police always sniffing around,” so Gerardo made it clear that what he did was “to install software, fix phones and enable Wi-Fi networking on mobile devices.”

State media, including the leading daily Granma, have criticized what they label Wi-Fi “profiteers,” a description that covers everyone from middle-men to those who use cell phones to create alternative wireless networks that can be accessed at half the official price.

Hundreds of people, their eyes glued to cell phones, tablets and computers, settle down on sidewalks, benches, stairs and curbs in streets within Wi-Fi hotspots’ range, like Yainiel, who travels 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Santiago de las Vegas to Havana just to go online. EFE