Sprint signs deal allowing subscribers to roam in Cuba

posted by Alan F. / Nov 02, 2015, 5:05 PM

Sprint signs deal allowing subscribers to roam in Cuba

With the U.S. and Cuba working on normalizing relations between the two countries, Sprint has looked ahead and says that there soon will be increasing numbers of U.S. travelers trekking down to the island nation. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure says that he wants Sprint customers making the trip to Cuba, to be able to use their phones as easily as they do back home.

As a result, Sprint has inked a deal with Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) to allow its customers to roam in Cuba. The nation's fourth largest carrier says that it will announce more details about roaming in Cuba at a future date. At that time, Sprint will probably reveal whether the roaming service in Cuba will be covered by its Global Roaming or Open World plans. The latter focuses on connectivity in Canada, Mexico, and other countries in the Latin America region.

"As the commercial relationship between the U.S. and Cuba continues to progress, it is expected that the number of travelers to Cuba will increase exponentially. We want to make sure any Sprint customer traveling to Cuba can use their phone the same way as they do in the United States."-Marcelo Claure, CEO, Sprint

In announcing that it has become the first mobile carrier to sign a deal with ETECSA, Sprint says that it expects 3 million people from around the world to visit Cuba this year. Within the next ten years, that number is expected to rise to 5 million travelers a year. Many of them will be Sprint customers visiting Cuba to work, study or visit family. Sprint says that the deal announced today will make things more "convenient" for these Sprint subscribers.

source: Sprint via Engadget

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4 Comments

1. PapaSmurf

Posts: 10457; Member since: May 14, 2012

Sprint should worry about the dropped calls and poor data signal/speeds in the US before doing anything else. I'm just saying.

posted on Nov 02, 2015, 5:42 PM 3

2. GeekMovement unregistered

And they should focus on serving their customers better. They just locked a line in our account that was free from contract (another 2 years) for no reason out of the blue. Now we have to call them again to get this all sorted out, as if the last issue we ran into wasn't headache enough. They just try every sneaking attempt to keep us.

posted on Nov 02, 2015, 6:06 PM 1

3. mike2959

Posts: 692; Member since: Oct 08, 2011

Also dump the sponsoring of NASCAR already. My god. The billions wasted.

posted on Nov 02, 2015, 6:52 PM 1

8. 2faraway

Posts: 75; Member since: Mar 26, 2014

Talking about it, Freedom pop is working in partnership with intel to offer a kinda free wifi-network like! I don't have the details but you know guys that etecsa doesn't even offer an unlimited plan!! everything is charge by the minute and it is expensive, yep all because that stupid government, US wants to set full peaces but they are just into stupid religion-like revolution, I swear not to talk anymore about politics, but sometimes is just impossible ignore it!