Cuba Connecting Universities With Fiber

lpress writes: Two Cuban universities have fiber links and fiber connections will be available to all Cuban universities in January 2016. One of the currently connected universities is in the west, near Havana (satellite ground station) and one in the east, near the undersea cable landing. Cuba will use Chinese equipment for DSL to the home and Wifi access points.

Comments

Back Door

[pubwvj]

Is this the same Chinese country that is building back doors into networking and computer equipment so they can later take it over as described in a previous article? Seems everyone's hip to this fun game and playing it out.

Re:Back Door

[ArmoredDragon]

That, and the fact that they're deploying long ago obsoleted last mile technology (DSL), I doubt their infrastructure will be any kind of marvel. One would think that an all new deployment would be at least kind of modern.

Re:Back Door

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same Chinese country...?

No, this is a Scottish Chinese country hidden away in the hills of Bavaria.

Re:Back Door

[DigiShaman]

I'm guessing equipment purchased on the used market. Cuba's still pretty poor right now. Thanks to Castro and his little shit-fit revolution, he drove that nation into the ground via COMMUNISM! And no, Cuba's survival didn't depend on trading with America; or the lack of in this case. The financial wounds were self-inflicted by Cuba for Cuba. It truly is a sad story and need not have happened.

Re:Back Door

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuba is using Chinese gear because after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whom were sending a $20 Billion check every year, that cash went to zero, sending the
cuban economy into a tailspin. The 90's were tough on Cuba, but they eventually found new trading partners. When I was there five years ago, instead of Soviet-era Lada's there were new and quite nice Chinese cars and motorcycles. I went from the airport to my hotel in a brand new Chinese made bus, and it was nicer than any bus I've seen in North America. The Cubans are buying Chinese data gear because they while the embargo prevented US goods, and the Russians gone, the Chinese have stepped in and Chinese goods are everywhere.

Re:Back Door

[citizenr]

Is this the same Chinese country that is building back doors into networking and computer equipment so they can later

You mean Cisco and US? No I dont think its this one.

Re:Back Door

[AK Marc]

It may have only resulted in a nicer palace for Castro, but the embargo on Cuban tobacco helped make the country poor. We'll never know what they would have done with the money. The evil of the US trumped the evil of Castro.

Re:Back Door

[Anonymous Coward]

You weren't there. That "shitfit" was kicking out Batista, a murderous, corrupt Mafia collaborating drug and gambling and crime cartel with rightwing death squads, right on the US doorstep. Great place to go for richer US tourists to spend money and buy prostitutes and drugs, pretty good place if you were rich and friendly with the government, bad, bad place to be poor. It was "trickle down economics" at its worst.

Castro refused to cooperate with the mafia, or with US cold war imperial policy, and refused to return the property and factories his government nationalized. Then the US tried to invade the country, and failed miserably.So that little "shitfit revolution" played the Russians off against the USA, successfully, for over *30 years* and kept their economy afloat and played political judo with the Western world.

Now? They're still surviving and making do. They're quite poor, mainly because the first round of Cuban expatriates in Miami have blocked every reconciliation attempt since the 1960's, and so has the US sugar and tobacco industries, which benefit profoundly from the lack of competition.

Re:Back Door

[DigiShaman]

"I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I will be a Marxist-Leninist until the last days of my life" - Fidel Castro (Dec 2, 1961)

I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution. - Fidel Castro (Oct, 23, 1992, as quoted in NY Times)

Forbes estimates Castro has a net worth between 550 million and 900 million dollars.

So yeah, keep wearing that Che Guevara T-Shirt there buddy.

Re:Back Door

[I'm New Around Here]

Despite all that, once Castro came to power, he used the US embargo as an eternal excuse to keep the country just as poor as it was beforehand.

I'll expand on what Digi pointed out - the entire world can trade with Cuba, except one country, and Cuba can't figure out how to have a good economy. It isn't the embargo one one single country that is hurting them, as even Raúl Castro admitted a few years ago.

Re:How about Cisco and NSA backdoor?

[YesIAmAScript]

That's not a Cisco backdoor.

That's a NSA backdoor the NSA installed by intercepting the units and installing their own hardware.

This is significantly different than a backdoor from the manufacturer which would be in all devices. That is if indeed that does exist in Huawei equipment. The Western media reports so breathlessly on Chinese companies that it's hard to tell what has basis in fact and what is just rumor.