HAVANA, Cuba Cuba, which is predicting it will have at least two million mobile phone lines available by 2015, says the tourism industry has benefited tremendously since the expansion of the cellular telephone network a few years ago.

Vice President of the Mobile Service of the Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) Maximo Lafuente, said that mobile telephone use had increased to the point that the company has signed agreement with 300 telecommunication companies worldwide to accommodate the number of tourists visiting the island.

He said ETECSA hopes to sign 30 more prepaid service agreements this year so that visitors could use their phones under the GSM system.

The Cuban News Agency, Prensa Latina, said that 70 per cent of Cuba has GSM coverage and only 23 of the country's 169 municipalities have no cellular coverage but this problem is to be solved this year.

There are currently 838.372 active services in the cellular network and ETECSA hopes to end this year with a million, Lafuente said.

He said that in 2009, mobile users paid for 2.69 million minutes and this year the figure is expected to reach  2.80 million minutes.