But for now the dispute affects only telephone calls. The shift will almost certainly lead to higher costs to U.S. callers in the near future because the U.S. firms will have to pay for the longer routing, Lopez said. Instead those calls are routed through places like Jordan or Italy or even Russia. That makes the Iraqis' work harder, a retired U.S. security expert said. Only when all systems were clogged were their calls answered by operators in Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico and even Italy.
People calling from Cuba to the United States appear to have been harder hit by the Havana cutoff.
Only about one in 10 calls to the United States goes through, said a U.S. citizen who was in Havana last week. The other nine calls either rang busy or were answered by tape-recorded announcements by Cuban operators that direct dialing was not possible and that callers should call a local operator to book U.S. calls. Twenty-eight of the approximately 60 Cubans being detained here while the U.S. immigration service and State Department determine their fate declared the hunger strike Feb. 14 to protest their prolonged internment. When they quit the strike, March 13, they numbered 18, Morris said. They ranged in age from 19 to 61.