Residents of Havana and other Cuban cities who were quietly using a U.S.-based broadband satellite link for clandestine Internet access suddenly found themselves cut off in late May, according to an entrepreneur who declined to be identified.

That source mentioned that an undisclosed number of Cubans previously had their friends and relatives in the United States and elsewhere set up accounts for them with HughesNet, a unit of Hughes Network Systems LLC based in Germantown, Md.

Once those accounts were set up, it was simply a question of getting the needed equipment to these residents.

“Lots of people [in Cuba] have been using this provider to access the Internet,” the businessman told CubaNews. “So what people did was to buy the equipment in the U.S. and bring it to Cuba. Hundreds of units have been installed in Cuba. This was their way of getting Internet access outside of [Cuban] government control.”

Independent news reports report that up to 30,000 satellite dishes have been smuggled into Cuba and are being used throughout the island in part to get unbridled access to U.S. and other TV channels they’d otherwise not be able to access.

One report illustrated an ingenious scheme to disguise satellite dishes as colorful boogie boards normally used by young surfers, complete with convincing artwork and catchy slogans like “Local Motion” and “Life Is Better When You Surf.com.”

In the past, local authorities have cracked down on illicit satellite use to prevent Cubans from watching TV Martí the U.S. government-sponsored anti-Castro station and other unauthorized activities like broadband Internet access.

Hughes Network told CubaNews “no comment” when asked for clarification, though one legal expert suggested that it may have cut off service for accounts it suspected were being used in Cuba was to avoid penalties by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“If Hughes shut the service down, it must have thought that providing it was illegal under the embargo,” said Hal Eren, a former OFAC official who now advises U.S. firms hoping to conduct business in Cuba, Iran and other countries subject to OFAC sanctions. “

“Even if it was illegal, it sounds like it would have been licensed by OFAC, given the overarching U.S. policy vis-a-vis Cuba in this area,” said Eren.