Cubans queue for affordable cell phones

Lines stretched for blocks outside phone stores Monday as ordinary Cubans were allowed to sign up for cellular phone service for the first time.

The contracts cost about US$120 (euro76) to activate — half a year's wages on the average state salary. And that doesn't include a phone or credit to make and receive calls. Still, lines formed before the centers opened, and waits grew to more than an hour.

Getting through the day without a cell phone is unthinkable now in most developed countries, but Cuba's government limited access to cell phones as well as kitchen appliances, hotels and other luxuries in an attempt to preserve the relative economic equality that is a hallmark of social life in communist Cuba.