Internet Drags in Cuba Despite Cable

The cable from Venezuela reached Cuba back in February, but the long awaited improved services and access have yet to materialize.

Isbel Diaz Torres 

HAVANA TIMES, August 6 — The “ALBA-1” double fiber optic cable still doesn’t offer service to Internet and telephone users in Cuba. The date for activating the project has been put back several times, with the last missed benchmark being July.

Boris Moreno Cordoves, the vice minister of Communications & Informatics, now says that improved services could begin in September or October of this year.

The laying of the cable from Venezuela to Santiago de Cuba was completed in February.

Announcements have repeatedly been made concerning the implementation of a project that promises to multiply the speed of data, image and voice transmissions by 3,000 times the capacity that Cuba currently possesses.

Meanwhile, islanders have been waiting for the arrival of that moment with great expectations.

Internet users continue experiencing the same frustratingly slow and difficult access to the web (Cuba has one of the lowest connection rates in the hemisphere).

According to official figures, 1.6 million users accessed the Internet in Cuba in 2009 (of a population of 11.2 million).  Nevertheless, that figure includes the great majority of those who don’t have full access; rather, they enjoy limited e-mail service or simply the national intranet, with many sites that are outdated.

For many years Cuba has attributed its connection limitations to the United States embargo, which has forced the island to use a satellite connection that is much slower and significantly more expensive than a physical connection.

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