Cuba's state-controlled telecommunications monopoly, a joint venture with Telecom Italia, charges $2.70 a minute to call the U.S. and $5.85 a minute to reach Europe and most of the rest of the world.
Making or receiving local calls costs $0.30 a minute.
Astorga, the medical student, said she planned to buy about $65 in credit—enough, she hopes, for three months of very brief conversations.
"You can't talk all day because it's too expensive," she said. "It's only, Hello, I'm here. Goodbye. Or, Where are you? and hang up."
A basic Nokia phone offering little more than calling and text messaging costs about $75, while a snazzier camera phone is retailing for $280—more than twice what it costs in the U.S.
One woman waiting to legalize a cell phone previously registered under someone else's name said the recent changes have made Cubans happy.
"It's something. Something small but positive," said Norma, who asked that her full name not be printed because of the unauthorized telephone.
Easing Restrictions
Cuba's President Raul Castro has done away with several similar restrictions since formally taking power in February, and his popularity has surged as a result.
Raul's brother, former president Fidel Castro, has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006.
An article last Friday in the Communist Party newspaper Granma said it was Fidel Castro's idea all along to lift bans on mobile phones.
The paper also said Fidel was behind recent government orders easing restrictions that had prevented most Cubans from staying in hotels, renting cars, enjoying beaches reserved for tourists, and buying DVD players and other consumer goods.
"They are part of a process initiated and called for by Fidel," the paper said of the recent changes.
But in written essays Fidel recently criticized DVDs, cell phones, the Internet, email, and the social networking site Facebook, asking: "Does the kind of existence promised by imperialism make any sense?"
And he wrote on Saturday that the island may be going too far in easing some restrictions.
"As in Cuba, there are those with theories about easy access to consumer goods," he wrote, dismissing those people as "imperial ears and eyes hungry for these dreams."
