Sprint Follows In Verizon’s Footsteps, To Offer Roaming Service In Cuba

“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”, added Claure.

The 33rd Havana global Trade Fair, FIHAV 2015, opened this Monday at its traditional headquarters, the fairground EXPOCUBA.

The U.S.-Cuba Business Council, inaugurated in September to remove commercial barriers across the Gulf of Mexico, will hold its first board meeting this week. The agreement allows Sprint subscribers to send and receive calls and text messages directly while visiting Cuba through the Telecommunications Company of Cuba, or ETECSA, which controls the Caribbean island’s telecommunications service.

Sprint said however it expects the number of visitors to Cuba to surge to five million a year within 10 years. For years, Cuban bureaucrats, foreign diplomats and businessmen gamely trooped through the halls of the Pabexpo fairgrounds on the outskirts of Havana, eyeing stalls stocked with products like Spanish canned vegetables and dutifully attending government presentations on opportunities for investments in state-controlled pig farms and nickel mines.

According to Sprint, any customer who can connect to its network in the US will be able to do the same in Cuba.

American companies will lag behind those from Cuba’s strategic partners Venezuela, China and Russian Federation.

Claure’s visit to Cuba, as a few would have expected, was controversial. There are still a lot of embargos on Cuba right now, with only Congress having the ability to change these restrictions on the country. For example, while President Obama has legalized USA sales of construction materials to homeowners and private businesses in Cuba, the communist government maintains a state monopoly on all imports and exports.

Details of the cost and availability of Sprint’s roaming deal are not announced yet. It is weird to see because for many decades, Cuba had been barred from importing American goods, but now, both sides are excited to see what the other has to offer.