AT&T signs pact with Cuba's government owned telecom monopoly to allow direct roaming to the U.S.

Now that the U.S. is in the process of trying to repair its long damaged relationship with Cuba, many U.S. companies are looking at the island nation as a great business opportunity. As more Americans start traveling to the country and American businesses start expanding, carriers like AT&T will be called upon to provide wireless service to U.S. visitors in Cuba that need to communicate back home.

Today, AT&T announced that it has signed a deal with Cuba's state-owned telecom provider that will allow phone calls to be routed directly from inside Cuba to the states. The deal between AT&T and Empresa De Telecomunicaciones De Cuba (Etecsa) was the subject of rumors back in March. Now that AT&T has signed a pact with the Cuban carrier, it means that all four of the major U.S. wireless operators have a deal in place with the Cuban telecommunications monopoly. And that should allow for improved wireless service to the U.S. for those traveling to Cuba on business or pleasure. Previously, calls between the U.S. and Cuba had to go through other countries which made them rather costly. And because these were not direct connections, the quality of the calls were poor.

While AT&T did announce that the deal with Etecsa has been signed, the carrier did not mention a launch date or discuss pricing for the service. The mobile operator did say that it will announce all of this information at a later date.

source: Reuters