FACTBOX: Obama eases family, telcoms ties to Cuba

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday lifted several key restrictions on Americans with family in Cuba and U.S. telecommunications providers seeking to offer service to the island. Here are the key actions:

* Lifts restrictions on frequency and duration of family visits to Cuba, and widens definition of family to permit members within three degrees of separation to travel.

* Eliminates how much and how often money can be sent in cash remittances to family members in Cuba, but maintains prohibitions on transfers to Cuban government officials and certain Cuban Communist Party members.

* Allows family members traveling to Cuba to carry up to $3,000 in cash remittances and establishes general license for financial institutions to forward such payments

* Permits U.S. telecommunications providers to sign agreements for setting up fiber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications facilities linking the United States and Cuba.

* Licenses telecommunications service providers to negotiate roaming agreements with Cuba's telecommunications provider.

* Licenses U.S. satellite radio and television companies to provide service to customers in Cuba.

* Permits Americans to pay for U.S. or other countries' wireless phone equipment and service for Cubans as well as satellite television and radio services and equipment. Ban would still apply to certain Cuban government officials and senior Cuban Communist Party officials.

* A White House official said that the Cuban government could prevent the communications links.

* Permits any U.S. individual to send gift parcels to Cuba and allows the recipient to be any Cuban who is not part of the government or Communist Party officials already prohibited from receiving such items.

* Expands the kinds of humanitarian donations permitted to include personal hygiene items, seeds, veterinary medicines and supplies, among other items.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington, editing by Patricia Wilson and Anthony Boadle)