Cuba Activates Under-Sea Fiber-Optic Cable For Incoming Traffic Only

While China demands their new residences have fiber optic connections starting April 1st and the FCC chairman issuing his “Gigabit City Challenge“, poor little ole Cuba is using satellite links throughout the country in order to get its Internet access. Ask anyone who has done a small amount of research in Internet data speeds and they’ll tell you one of the slowest methods has got to be satellite links, but it looks like Cuba is finally getting up to speed with its Internet connections.

A report released by Internet analysis firm Renesys yesterday highlights Cuba’s use of fiber-optic cables and running them undersea has boosted Internet traffic to the country about a week ago. The fiber-optic cables, which were put in place nearly two years ago, don’t seem to be used for outgoing traffic as that data seems to still be handled by satellite.

Even though Cuba has limits on its Internet that resemble a tightly controlled intranet, this is still a step in the right direction for the country as the cost of communicating with Cuba by telephone or mail is costly to family and friends who live outside of the country. Being able to communicate with them may be a bit easier now that the country is somewhat expected to experience a true broadband connection.

Daniel Perez
Categories: Computers, Web
Tags: fiber optic