Cuba Turns On Submarine Internet Cable

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."

Comments

Well

[GeekWithAKnife]

I guess it's time for a Cuba Libre. Cheers.

Re:Well

[Noughmad]

So you drink to the completion of "Cuba Fibre"?

I'm glad for their sailors

[Anonymous Coward]

To finally have internet access on their submarines must be a godsend. I wonder how they avoid getting the cable tangled as the maneuver though.

Just ask

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:Just ask

[vlm]

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?

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Good

[Anne Thwacks]

3) To protect certain TV channels from the influx of good music

Re:Good

[Plumpaquatsch]

why the hell should be still be fucking with Cuba?

Because they agreed to allow the USSR to put NUCLEAR fucking MISSILES on their island, aimed at us, and it's basically the same government in power today.

Even the USSR was trading with just about anyone in Western-Europe, despite either their own or US Nukes aimed at them from there. And even Turkey didn't get the Cold War shoulder, despite the stationing of US nukes there that was the reason for stationing nukes in Cuba in the first place (which BTW where "coincidently" removed just a few months after the end of the Cuba crisis).

Not to mention that the embargo started before the nukes and was the actual reason that Cuba became depended on the USSR in the first place.

Re:Good

[ledow]

So the USSR is on the trade-embargoes list too? (Er... no... it's not).

The US itself put nuclear weapons in the EU in case of the USSR attacking, and although they are an "ally" to the EU, I don't see any of the former Russian states initiating embargoes with the EU countries or the US, now or in the past?

And where embargoes exist, or have existed since the Cold War, they are usually aimed purely at the thing you want to embargo (i.e. nuclear weapons, like the UK embargoed India). A blanket trade embargo is someone throwing their toys out of the pram, not a sensible real-world solution, and is usually only temporary until a government settles into power.

And the US-Cuba embargo was started in 1960. Most of the legislators who decided on the embargo aren't even around any more. My entire life was lived in that time, with nearly two decades to spare. Wars were fought and won.

The US is a playground bully that embargoes countries that don't play by its terms. It has little or no real-world relevance to their security, or anything else.

Cuba are about as much a threat to the US as Argentina is to UK. And, hell, technically we went to war with Argentina for an invasion of UK-owned islands in the intervening decades, fought it, declared peace and several decades later are being cautious about a potential re-occurrence. But we still don't even trade-embargo them.

And, technically, the embargo has NEVER been about that. It was about human rights, trade debts, and the nationalisation of US citizens' property in the country. The Missile Crisis came years later, and was resolved within days.

Let's punish countries for things they did up to 60+ years ago with their own allies that actually hurt no-one, and punish them even when the problem goes away. Because there'd be an AWFUL lot of countries up shit creek if we did that.

And, the thing is, nobody has ANY idea whose has missiles and where they could be aimed at nowadays. Nobody. Hell, that was the whole "WMD" farce in a nutshell - a false positive. And most modern weapons could take out anyone, anywhere, without warning. By the standards applied, the US should either a) invade Cuba or b) trade-embargo every country in the world. The threat was always the USSR, never Cuba itself.

Notice that no other countries embargo Cuba. Not even the US allies. That says a lot. And no country in the world has had an embargo in place for as long.

Re:Good

[Max_W]

It was widely noticed in Europe that as soon as goods and tourists stop crossing boarders - tanks and soldiers start to cross instead.

It is simple - one does not shoot his/her customers.

Re:Turn on?

[InPursuitOfTruth]

You don't 'turn on' a cable.

you've never had your cable turned on?

Cable Only Being Used For Downstream Traffic

[cheese-cube]

The most interesting thing which the summary skipped over is from the Renesys article which states that apparently Cuba is only using the new fibre cable for downstream traffic and that upstream traffic is still going out via their satellite links.

Will Cuba Ever Learn?!

[mooboy]

First they turn on their capitalist landowners and now they have turned on their Submarine Internet Cable! Don't you know what's good for you, Cuba?

Interesting Enigma

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what or how much difference this cable will make for the immediate future.

Cuba is a really interesting enigma. The Cuban government (and some misinformed Americans) likes to blame the U.S. embargo on Cuba's woes, being poor with little hope of advancement. But, the reality is that ALL of Cuba's woes are the failure of the Cuban government.

Sure, the U.S. and some of its allies own't (aren't allowed) to trade with Cuba, but the vast majority of the world can and will trade with Cuba. A few actually do trade. Countries like Canada, the E.U., Japan, Australia, Russia, India, China, most Latin American countries... They all willingly trade with Cuba. But, they require Cuba to pay them for goods and that is where Cuba suffers. Due to mismanagement by the Cuban government and their ideology, they have never had a strong enough economy nor enough money to buy the things that they need or should have as a modern country.

We are always shown the crumbling buildings and the 1950s era cars on the streets of Havana. But, there are a fair few brand new Peugots, Renaults, Toyotas and more driving around on Cuba's roads. But, they are all being driven by the extremely wealthy, government officials or tourists. There are fabulous opulent and modern resorts in Cuba. There are citizens with expensive yachts around Havana. The media never shows this and the Cuban government keeps it on the DL so that the local population doesn't get upset about it, but its all there.

Recently, there have been reports of food shortages in Cuba. Why? Cuba is a Caribbean island that is extremely fertile. They could, and in the past have been able to feed themselves. Once upon a time Cuba exported food, as well as other resources. Sure, the U.S. market isn't open to them, but all the rest of the world is. Yet they fail so miserably that they are now struggling to feed the populace? That's gross mismanagement. That's Fidel's fault. Raul may or may not be turning to a better course, but for the past 50 years, the management has been the cause of Cuba's problems.

All of Cuba's woes are caused by their government's poor management and failed ideology.

Re:Interesting Enigma

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been there and it didnt look very woeful to me.

A lot of the ancient 1950s gas guzzlers have been replaced. People everwhere on the island were wearing new clothes. New roads were under construction. Pretty much like any 3rd world country that is modernising.

There didnt seem to be any food shortage that I could see.

Although I didnt see it first hand, the health care is legendary.

Re:Interesting Enigma

[operagost]

It's funny; everyone says their health care is legendary, but no one has actually seen it. Oh yes, some foreigners have seen the facilities made available to them-- but these aren't the ones used by Cuban citizens.

If Cuban health care is so great, why do humanitarian organizations and relatives have to send in medicines from the USA all the time?

Re:Interesting Enigma

[dkleinsc]

My mother made several trips there in the 1990's, spending most of her time well outside of Havana, in private homes, and was not surrounded by government minders or anything like that.

There was a significant crisis after the collapse of the USSR, because before 1989 the Cuban economy had relied on trading sugar to the USSR in exchange for almost everything else including food. There were some food shortages - nothing like, say, Ethiopia's famines, but people were sometimes going hungry. The Cuban government responded to this by converting more of their farming towards food and loosening the restrictions on private sales of food (prior to that, the only legal way to get food was to buy it from the government-run stores). It still hasn't fully recovered, but it's definitely gotten better in the food department. Raul Castro is also significantly more pragmatic about such things than Fidel Castro was - Fidel was focused on pure ideological communism, Raul seems fine with limited market economies so long as nobody is getting overly rich or poor.

Health care was definitely readily available and quite innovative. Their model starts with the neighborhood doctor, who is not only the primary care physician but also acts as a public health advocate for residents. Doctors also were growing herb gardens and using them for natural remedies when the pills weren't available (e.g. camomile instead of sleeping pills). On the flip side, when pills were available, she noticed that people would frequently take very large doses, far more than an American would, all at once. Because of the difficulty in treating illness, Cuban medicine has always been focused on preventative care, and it seems to mostly work. The people she encountered were generally of sound health.

And as a sibling poster points out, your average Haitian or Dominican would see Cuba as a paradise by comparison. You would probably also be a lot happier living in Cuba than living in the worst part of Detroit.

Re:Interesting Enigma

[PhilJC]

Having spent three weeks in Cuba, one week in a 5* hotel for my brothers’ wedding and the other two weeks trekking round the island on my own I thought I'd add some comments from my experiences there:

Yes it is a poor country but as far as quality of life goes I have to say I’ve seen a lot worse (India, Thailand, even rural Mexico to name but a few... Don’t even get me started on Africa). The people I met were friendly and largely happy with what they had.. I say largely because I did hear complaints but these were mostly along the lines of “I want a better TV.. my car needs new parts.. etc. Nothing you wouldn’t hear from a more wealthy first worlder.

Whilst travelling I tripped and cut my leg in Cauto Cristo. This is not a tourist destination and I have to say the medical attention I received was excellent and, best of all, free.

I didn’t see any food shortages – in fact people were continuously inviting me round for dinner (and only once was I asked to contribute and it was only for the price of ingredients rather than an attempt to con the foreign devil)

With regard to the “opulent” resorts mentioned by a previous poster I have to say they were great. But hardly “opulent” when compared to a Las Vegas hotel. Tourism is a major source of income for the country so why wouldn’t they spend money making it a place people want to visit? These resorts are hardly hidden from the populace either and instead offer job opportunities that everyone I spoke with were pleased to have.

Re:Turn on?

[rogueippacket]

Oddly enough, a lot of ISP's in North America actually monitor the traffic flowing to/from embargoed or troubled nations. Not necessarily deep inspection, but they do count the source/destination IP addresses and record the daily volumes.
Now, we need to consider traffic flowing out of Venezuela as another route to Cuba. It's fairly important if you peer with Telefonica directly, or if your job is to monitor this stuff.

Venezuela

[Gocho]

To all of you who think Cuba is "modernizing" on its own, I remind you that Venezuela is sending over 100,000 barrels of oil on a daily basis which the Castros sell to other countries at current market prices. Venezuela became, for Cuba, what the USSR used to be. This is why many venezuelans think that their (our) country is being controlled politically by the Castros in Chavez' absence so that Cuba never loses that lifeline that, if it were to be gone tomorrow, it will send their country to another "periodo especial"