General Information

Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A (ETECSA) is the monopoly telecommunications provider in Cuba, owned by the Cuban governement. Since December 2018, they have offered mobile data services to Cubans.

Radio Spectrum Deployment

Courtesy of Cellmapper:

Cuba 4G-LTE

Cuban 4G LTE services operate on 1800MHz (Band 3) with 20MHz carrier bandwidth using EARFCN 1600.

Cuba 3G-UMTS

Cubacel 3G services operate on 900MHz (Band 8) and 2100MHz (Band 1). The former with three carriers: UARFCNs 2947, 2972, 2997; the latter is only present in very specific locations like hotels and two carriers are operated: UARFCNs 10613 and 10838.

Cuban 2G-GSM

ETECSA 2G services are operated on 900MHz with various ARFCNs.

ETECSA Radio Access Network (RAN) Hardware

Huawei in the East of Cuba and Ericsson in the West with some Nokia aswell. Ericsson RRUS and ERS series are used.

Antennas

Kathrein antennas are used by Cubacel

Cubacel Masts

Cubacel Huawei Mast

Cubacel Huawei 2G/3G/4G with Kathrein antennas, Huawei 5904 4T4R L18 RRUs and Huawei 5909 2G/3G 900MHz.

Closeup of Huawei site.

Cubacel Ericsson Masts

Cubacel Ericsson mast with three Ericsson ERS radios for 2G/3G 900MHz and three for 4G 1800MHz. Kathrein 80010864 antennas.

This Cubacel mast has only three Ericsson ERS Radios, likely for L18 with the 2G/3G 900MHz coming from the cabin.

Cubacel Ericsson Mast without 4G: 2G/3G 900MHz only. Ericsson RRUS12 are visible.

Cubacel Nokia Masts

A Cubacel Nokia Mast with three Nokia Radios and Kathrein antennas. The three Nokia radios are probably split two for 900MHz (FXDBs) and one for L18.