Cuba has a very special kind of internet. Few people have an internet connection at home because it鈥檚 so expensive. Instead a weekly collection of websites and entertainment is physically swapped on USB sticks and portable hard drives.
Each week, millions of Cubans meet their nearest dealer armed with a storage device ready to download parts of El Paquete Semanal 鈥� the weekly package. It鈥檚 filled with the latest content, including films and TV shows, as well as websites, apps, and e-books.
Material has been distributed this way since around 2008, and a new study presented last week at the in California explores how the network works.
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For seven consecutive weeks, the team bought a full copy of El Paquete.聽 It was around 1 terabyte in size, with the vast majority coming from video, and there was very little overlap from week to week.
鈥淭he majority of Cubans have some contact with El Paquete Semznal,鈥� says Jeanna Matthews at Clarkson University in New York.
鈥淎 very common thing to do, would be to get a personal relationship with a dealer who would bring a weekly package to your home.鈥� It鈥檚 then normal to then share this with friends and neighbours, she says.
People pay a different rate depending on how much they download, and can choose between a large selection of TV shows, music, video games, sports, digital magazines, books, religious materials, and entire copies of websites such as Wikipedia and Revolico, a Cuban craigslist-style market place. The whole lot normally costs around 2 CUC (around $2 USD).
There are people who act as curators for the different sections such as sports or foreign movies, with content in El Paquete appearing within days of being officially released in other countries.
There are also specific magazines produced solely for El Paquete, such as a Cuban culture magazine called Vistar, and Hablan2D, a show containing previews of upcoming El Paquete content.
Once each section is curated it is passed to high-level distributors known as matrices that put the full package together, before passing it to the dealers.
Some matrices sponsor their own productions 鈥� like Netflix Originals there are El Paquete Originals too. They may also add adverts to their package. Cuba doesn鈥檛 have much advertising in general, and it is thought that this may bring in as much money as people paying for the content.
A large portion of El Paquete is pirated, but there is very little attempt from the government to restrict the network. There is even a state sponsored version called La Mochila or The Backpack. It is smaller and fewer people use it, but it also contains pirated content, although the primary focus is on educational material.
