Tech | July 26, 2017 12:19 pm

How Do-It-Yourself Internet Users Surf the Web in Cuba

Cubans creatively overcome problems caused by insufficient connectivity.

Cuban teenagers sit along a sidewalk on their cell phones and laptops to use the internet from a near by wifi hotspot in Havana, Cuba on August 14, 2015. Hotspots are limited and one of very few ways for Cubans to access the internet. You can usually find large groups gathered around late into the night to surf the web on their cell phones and laptops. Despite this being a common scene in the US and other countries around the world this is a new phenomenon since wifi was made available to Cubans only two months ago. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)Cuban teenagers sit along a sidewalk on their cell phones and laptops to use the internet from a near by wifi hotspot in Havana, Cuba on August 14, 2015. Hotspots are limited and one of very few ways for Cubans to access the internet. You can usually find large groups gathered around late into the night to surf the web on their cell phones and laptops. Despite this being a common scene in the US and other countries around the world this is a new phenomenon since wifi was made available to Cubans only two months ago. (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

By Matthew Reitman

A revolution’s brewing in Cuba—a digital one, that is.

Cuba’s internet is struggling to get up modern standards after years of economic isolation, but residents of the Caribbean nation are creatively finding ways to re-create the web-based services of the connected world.

The internet in Cuba is plagued by strict censorship and pervasive surveillance. Outside of government inference, users have to overcome glacial connection speeds and spotty service that make navigating the web more of a chore than the convenience it is in more developed nations.

Many start-ups, like Knales, have created clever workarounds. Knales skips the Internet entirely and beams news, sports, and weather updates to its customer’s mobile phones via text messages.

Instead of streaming movies of TV shows, Wired reports 3 million Cubans get their content through the Paquete, a service delivering a week’s worth of fresh videos on a USB. A network of couriers move the hard drives around the city to be copied and sold.

According to Wired, the content’s downloaded via public Wi-Fi hotspots. It’s more likely someone with a high-speed connection, a government administrator or foreign hotel worker, downloads large chunks of the Paquete. Polygon reports content’s frequently pirated via satellite TV.