If you try to connect to the public wifi in any of Cuba's 35 new hotspots, you will see the standard, government-owned network, but you'll also see a flurry of quasi-legal personal hotspots created by the tech savvy. The American startup making these hotspots possible has just changed its policy to make the software free for Cubans, which could make it easier for people in the country to sidestep the official, expensive government login process.

The software is called "Connectify," and it essentially turns any PC (and PC only) into a personal hotspot so long as it has a working internet connection. After hearing that Cubans use the software to connect those who can't afford it, the Philadelphia-based startup announced Tuesday that it's making the software completely free in Cuba for the next three months.

"I wasn't aware of this, but when we saw Cubans were using this, we thought, 'This is really cool,'" Bhana Grover, one of the founders of Connectify told me. "We obviously want to make money, but we also want people to be able to share the internet with their devices, that's one of the goals."

In Cuba, it's expensive and difficult to connect to the internet with your own device, even with new hotspots installed around Havana and some of the island's larger cities. To get online, you've got to buy a $2, one-hour scratch off card from a store called ETECSA (which also operates the networks). Often, the lines to buy these cards are extremely long, and they're generally in short supply, which has led to them being commonly sold on the black market. Even at $2 a piece, these cards are extremely expensive for most Cubans, who make an average of about $20 a month at their official government jobs. To connect, you have to enter a username and password contained on the scratch cards.