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Cubans
risk raids to get satellite TV
By Eloise Quintanilla, Contributor
to The Christian Science Monitor Thu Jul
12, 4:00 AM ET
Havana - Before the police raid, the Perez
family paid $7.56 per month for a DirecTV
window on the world.
Daniel, a literature major at the University
of Havana, watched the Chicago White Sox
on ESPN. His mom, Marisel, never missed
an episode of "La Fea Más Bella"
(The Prettiest Ugly Girl), a popular Mexican
soap opera on Univision. And Daniel's younger
brother was an avid fan of the VH1 music
videos.
Now, they are stuck with four Cuban TV
channels - and two of those are devoted
to educational programming.
"Cuban TV is boring.... There isn't
much variation," says Daniel Perez
(who fears arrest, so asked that his family's
real name be changed). "I like being
in the loop, knowing about the newest trends
and feeling like I'm in touch with the world."
Having a satellite TV, cellphone, or Internet
connection at home is illegal for most Cuban
citizens. But that hasn't stopped the spread
of such services on the black market.
Pedro, a young underground entrepreneur,
gets his nightly news from Channel 23 (Univision),
"because Cuban TV doesn't give me unbiased
coverage of world news.... But neither does
American news. So I watch both and compare
them."
Pedro, who requested his last name not
be used, estimates that 90 percent of his
neighbors get satellite TV service. "That
business really started to accelerate about
a year ago," he says. "All of
our neighbors know about [it] but nobody
talks about it. The woman who lives below
me is the president of the CDR [Committee
for the Defense of the Revolution] and even
she has cable television."
But in recent months, the Cuban government
has stepped up efforts to curb this booming
underground industry. Two months ago, the
police raided Pedro's neighborhood early
in the morning. They blocked off the streets,
climbed on the rooftops, and began cutting
cables leading to the satellite dish, he
says.
"My neighbor started making hand signals
at me from the window of his house that
the police were here and to take down my
cables," says Pedro. Although Pedro
escaped detection, he decided to remove
his cable connections permanently for fear
that the police would discover his illicit
CD-making business. As for his neighbors,
"Two days later, people were already
putting up their cables again."
Mauricio Barroso, a telecommunications
official in the Ministry of the Interior,
says that 37.6 percent of households in
Havana were connected to the service when
the police began the raids in March. By
early May, one set of raids had netted a
significant amount of coaxial and neoprene
cable, three satellite receptors, five satellite
dish antennas, 43 signal amplifiers, a computer,
and five LNB (low-noise block converters),
according to the government-run newspaper,
Granma.
The Cuban government is also levying multi-tiered
fines and jail sentences on satellite TV
providers. According to Granma, signal distributors
were slapped with fines of 10,000 ($450)
and 20,000 ($900) Cuban pesos and jail sentences
of three to five years. Users of the service
were fined only 1,500 pesos ($67.50).
Mr. Barroso says that illegal satellite
TV service in Cuba has been around since
the 90s, "but people gain access to
the service much more easily now.... The
service is much more affordable. That's
why it's increasing at such a rapid rate.
For the service to build up to the levels
of '93, it took three years. Now, they [the
service providers] fill up half the city
in three months."
In Daniel's neighborhood, the satellite
TV guy is a 6-foot-4-inch tall Afro-Cuban
named Alberto. He declined to give his last
name. Two gold teeth glint as he smiles
and explains his fee structure. He charges
a one-time connection fee of 10 CUC (Cuban
Convertible Pesos) or about $11, and 7 CUC
($7.56) a month for service. In a good month,
with 300 households in his neighborhood
as clients, he rakes in up to 2,000 CUC
($2,160). He still has a legal $15 per month
income as a truck driver. He keeps this
job in order to keep a low profile. By Cuban
standards, Alberto is wealthy.
When Alberto started his business four
years ago, he had to shop for a satellite
dish antenna, a receiver, an access card
with the correct code to capture the signal,
a signal amplifier, and cable on the black
market. He distributes the satellite signal
from his single dish antenna to his neighborhood
through a spider web of cables over the
rooftops. There's a catch, however. Everyone
on the network has to watch the same channel
that the satellite dish owner is watching.
Alberto does an informal survey of his customers
to find out what they like to watch. His
programming schedule includes telenovelas
from Univision and Telemundo, movies from
HBO and STARZ, popular talk shows such as
"Don Francisco Presents," and
the variety show "Sabado Gigante."
But the average official monthly wage in
Cuba is only $15. How can Cubans afford
this service? Many have illegal businesses
and relatives living abroad (mostly in the
US). According to The Economist Intelligence
Unit, an estimated $812 million were sent
to Cuba in the form of workers' remittances
in 2006 alone.
Pedro, for example, gets $100 a month from
his brother in Washington, D.C. His second
source of informal income comes from the
sale of pirated copies of CDs produced with
a computer from his brother. "In two
days, I make what a Cuban doctor makes in
a month. That's how I am able to pay for
a cellphone and satellite TV service,"
says Pedro.
In May, the government-run media reported
that satellite TV is part of a US plot to
overthrow the Cuban government. Mayra Espina,
a researcher at the University of Havana,
says that may be an overreaction. "Watching
'La Fea Más Bella' is not an act
of opposition against the state. It is not
a political attitude. It is a phenomenon
of free time."
Despite the recent crack down, satellite
dishes continue to pop up on roof tops.
"If there is censorship," says
Alberto, "There is business."
o Daniel Palacios contributed to this story
from Havana.
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