Annual report on Cuban ICT

The Cuban National Statistics Office reports over one million computers and twice as many .CU domain names as the previous year.

The Cuban National Statistics Office has released their 2014 Information and Communication Technology report. Here are the statistics on computers and networks:

They say there are over a million computers in Cuba and about half of them are networked. They report nearly 3 million Internet users, but say nothing of how many of those users have global access. The experience of a Cuban "user" is also much different than that of a "user" in a developed nation -- most access is via shared computers over dial up links. Access is infrequent and too slow to support modern Web sites.

For more discussion of the limitations of these statistics, see the Pervaiveness section of my 2011 report on the State of the Cuban Internet. The data has changed somewhat, but not the interpretation.

The number of .CU domain names doubled in 2013, reflecting a sharp increase in the number of businesses and other organizations using the Internet. This could have been triggered by liberalization of laws allowing private sector business.

The percent of the population with cell phone coverage was unchanged in 2013, indicating either a lack of capital for investment or a lag in the statistical reporting process.

These statistics are gathered by the Communication Ministry and, as with other nations, self-reported to the International Telecommunication Union.

Cuba publishes 2012 ICT indicators

The National Office of Statistics and Information has published their annual report on information and communication technology.  (We have summarized the 2010 and 2011 reports in earlier posts).

The current report presents telephone, postal, telegraph and computer data from 2008-12. Here are the computer and networking statistics:

Bear in mind that these statistics, like those of other nations, are self-reported to the International Telecommunication Union.

I assume that the numbers of networked computers and number of Internet users refer to the Cuban intranet and the Internet combined.  (While most of the other indicators are defined in the report, these are not).

The number of .cu domain registrations grew by only 2.6%, which is a bit surprising given the recent emphasis on private business.

Mobile coverage is the "star" statistic, but, as far as I know, it is all 2G at this time and the growth in infrastructure (coverage) was considerably slower than subscriber growth. The same domestic infrastructure problems that have plagued the Internet and access to the undersea cable restricts back-haul from cell towers.