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Cuba Turns On Submarine Internet Cable

Posted by samzenpus on from the under-the-sea dept.

angry tapir writes "A change in Internet traffic patterns over the past week suggests that Cuba may have turned on a fiber-optic submarine cable that links it to the global Internet via Venezuela. Routing analyst firm Renesys noticed that the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica began routing Internet traffic to Cuba's state telecommunications company, Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA). The Internet traffic is flowing with significantly lower latencies than before, indicating the connection is not solely using the three satellite providers that Cuba has relied on in the past for connectivity."

4 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Just ask by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just ask them if it is active. Don't speculate. They have no reason to hide it, and every reason to boast that their internet connections just got better.

    The author seems to have mistaken Cuba for North Korea.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    1. Re:Just ask by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just ask them if it is active. Don't speculate

      Assuming their Venezuelan peer didn't connect to them via satellite and does now connect via fiber, it should be simple to log into your nearest BGP speaking router and/or check a looking glass web interface for the cuban ISP AS number and see if it now has a path via the fiber instead of / in addition to the path via the existing satellite providers.

      That's how you "don't speculate". Is there a BGP path over that fiber or not?

      Of course if the path won't change if all that changes is layer 1/layer 2 from satellite to fiber.

      This is assuming Cuba has enough traffic to warrant being a "real" ISP with BGP peers and full routes. I suspect they do?

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  2. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Use this as a chance to end the embargo against Cuba. It has been 50 years, let's move on. If we can now trade with Burma and Vietnam, then why the hell should be still be fucking with Cuba?

    1. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1)To get votes from the Cuban community from Miami.
      2)To protect US corn farmers and corn syrup from imports of cane sugar from Cuba.