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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."

12 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. I'm glad for their sailors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  2. 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.

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    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
  3. 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.

    2. Re:Good by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

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  4. Cable Only Being Used For Downstream Traffic by cheese-cube · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Interesting Enigma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Interesting Enigma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Interesting Enigma by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

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  6. Re:Well by Noughmad · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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  7. Venezuela by Gocho · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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"