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01/21/13 - NBCNews.com (blog) - Report: Cuba using undersea fiberoptic cable

35 min.

Peter Orsi , The Associated Press

[1]Report: Cuba using undersea fiber-optic cable

Cuba apparently has finally switched on the first undersea fiber-optic
cable linking it to the outside world nearly two years after its arrival,
according to analysis by a company that monitors global Internet use.

In a report posted Sunday on the website of Renesys, author Doug Madory
wrote that Cuba began using the ALBA-1 cable on Jan. 14.

Until now the island's Internet service has been through satellite links
that are slower than hard-wired fiber-optic connections. Starting a week
ago, Madory said, routing data showed significantly faster traffic to the
country and the emergence of Spanish telecom Telefonica as a provider of
routing service to Cuban state-run communications company ETECSA.

Routing speed is measured by how long it takes to send a data packet
somewhere and receive confirmation back at the original server, akin to
how submarines "ping" each other with radar to determine location.

Madory wrote that the sudden improvement in latency measurements between
Cuba and four cities in the U.S., Mexico and Brazil indicates the cable is
in use. But speeds have not reached levels suggesting that the cable is
handling all traffic, leading him to conclude that outgoing data is still
traveling via satellite.

"We believe it is likely that Telefonica's service to ETECSA is, either by
design or misconfiguration, using its new cable asymmetrically (i.e., for
traffic in only one direction)," Madory wrote.

Cuban government officials and Telefonica did not immediately respond to
requests for comment Monday. Cuba has said in the past that it would
prioritize the cable for usage deemed in the public interest and for
social good.

Dial-up Internet access, essentially the only option for most Cubans who
are able to go online, has continued to be slow and creaky in recent days.

Cuba is the last country in the western hemisphere to get a fiber-optic
hookup and, according to Akamai, has the second-lowest Internet
connectivity rates in the world.

Havana says about 16 percent of Cubans are online in some capacity, mostly
through work or school, but often that's limited to email and access to an
island Intranet. Just 2.9 percent report having full Internet access,
though analysts say it's probably more like 5 or 10 percent due to
underreporting of black-market resale of minutes.

"While the activation of the ALBA-1 cable may be a good first step to
providing ETECSA a better link to the Internet, the lack of widespread
public access to Internet service throughout the island will likely
continue," Madory wrote.

The $70 million cable strung from Venezuela came onshore in eastern Cuba
in February 2011 and was supposed to be online as early as that summer.

But officials suddenly stopped talking about the cable amid rumors of
arrests at ETECSA and the Ministry of Communications, and whispers of
purported mismanagement or embezzlement involving the project.

Last May, Venezuela's minister of science and technology said the cable
was operational and it was up to Cuba to decide how it wanted to use it.

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1. http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/report-cuba-using-undersea-fiber-optic-cable-1B8041253


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http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/report-cuba-using-undersea-fiber-optic-cable-1B8041253