Castro Retires, Cuba Gets Cellphones

We don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but the people of Cuba today finally get the proud first-world privilege of 2-year carrier contracts, overpriced text messages, data service they’ll never use and half-empty buckets of minutes that will surely run out by the middle of the month. Until now, Cuba had the lowest mobile phone usage in Latin America, because individuals could only get cell service via their jobs or foreign carriers, but now the new Cuban prez, Fidel’s brother Raul, says it’s okay for everyone to jump in and cell up. Question is, how many can afford it? [Reuters; AP]