For quite some time the U.S. has had no normalized relationships with Cuba, until late last year when President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro came to an agreement to begin the process of normalizing relationships, which has led to the re-opening of the U.S. embassy in the region as of last month. It’s this chain of events which has allowed Verizon to establish the means to make it possible for U.S. residents traveling within Cuba to gain roaming access and have the ability to use their devices when traveling in the country. As of today, Verizon is announcing that they officially support international roaming within Cuba.
This means Verizon Wireless customers will be able to use their devices inside of the country, making Verizon the first U.S. carrier to support roaming inside of Cuba. Officially, these capabilities don’t open up until next week, so Verizon customers won’t immediately be able to take advantage of the new plan options. Once the feature does launch, Verizon subscribers will be allowed access and use of voice, text, and data within the region by using the company’s Pay-As-You-Go International Travel plan. There are a few caveats before customers can start using these features next week though, the first of which is that Verizon subscribers will need to make sure they have a world phone that works internationally.
Secondly they’ll need to make sure to be aware of the charges it will cost to use each part of the new feature, as voice calls, messages, and data usage all have their own rates. Data will be the most expensive costing users a total of $2.05 per megabyte, while messages are based on standard international messaging rates for Verizon. Meanwhile, voice calls will be $2.99 per minute. For anyone who will be traveling to Cuba after this new roaming function takes effect next week, they’ll be able to stay connected to friends and family back here at home without having to use anything other than their normal plan features. Customers will want to keep in mind that they can also likely connect up to WiFi hotspots while they’re there and utilize the data for communication that way.