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Cuba Uses Big Data To Help Tourism, But Their Networks Lack Capacity

Posted by timothy on from the not-much-room-on-there dept.

dkatana writes: The Cuban government is very active in reshaping the country's industry, not only focusing on leisure and cultural tourism. The biggest challenge, however, is the quality of Internet connections. Cuba's global ranking for Internet speed is 196 out of 200, averaging 1.6 Mbps, just ahead of Guinea, Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, and Niger. Another thing that Cuba lacks: free movement of currency, as reader lpress points out: Cuba has two paper currencies — the Peso and the Convertible Peso or CUC. CUCs are worth about $1 and Pesos, which are used for government salaries, are worth about $.04. But, what about Bitcoin? The first Cuban Bitcoin transaction is history. Will Bitcoin be used by Cubans and Americans to sell goods and services without the knowledge of their governments? Cuban offshore developers might be the first to use Bitcoin.

32 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Room for Growth? by nucrash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While the US is just now starting to establish ties with this country again, I think that we have a pretty good chance at setting up several shops and improving the connectivity in this country. This could be a giant boom to the industry which we could so greatly use.

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    Place something witty here
    1. Re:Room for Growth? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      It won't be necessary for that Pig AmeriKKKa you despise to "do anything" to Cuba. Given free trade, they will fix the problem themselves.

      The first thing that will happen will be trade in OUR direction: Cubans selling those carefully maintained classic cars to US collectors for a half mill apiece. This will provide Cubans the capital to, aided by the Miami expatriates, set up the little businesses they have always craved. No longer will they have to hide two-table restaurants inside houses. Then you will see large cash-cow lines of business like cigar making and resorts. Medical tourism could be a wild card.

    2. Re:Room for Growth? by k6mfw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cubans selling those carefully maintained classic cars to US collectors for a half mill apiece.

      Probably not. An AP article on yahoo news last week mentioned all those classic cars may not be worth much. Reporter got a ride in a 1958 Chevy with a Peugout diesel engine. Of course that makes the car very unique. Lots of luck getting it into US unless you go through horrible bureaucracy to convince Customs Dept the car will never see a road and will always be on display some place.

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      mfwright@batnet.com
    3. Re:Room for Growth? by SQL+Error · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's still a communist dictatorship. Nothing's going to improve until that changes.

    4. Re:Room for Growth? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Informative

      The first time I was in Cuba, I remarked to our tour guide that they must have some amazing mechanics to keep those cars running. He smiled, and said "we call those people religious people, they get up every morning and pray the car starts".

      As you said, the body of an old Chevy (bondo and all), the transmission from a Chinese car, the engine from a Peugot, and who knows what else ... it's all been mashed together to keep the illusion going.

      These are cars which have been kept running with ingenuity, necessity, and whatever the hell they have laying around they can work with.

      But they sure as heck aren't pristine, original collector cars. They're pretty amazing to see, but half million dollar cars? No bloody way in hell.

      They're a testament to Cuban ingenuity, but wouldn't be road legal in many countries.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:Room for Growth? by gizmo2199 · · Score: 1

      You'd probably have an easier time finding an original classic car on eBay than in Havana.

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      This Sig does not Exist.
    6. Re:Room for Growth? by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 1

      And it'll probably change dramatically when Fidel Castro dies.

      I asked a friend how long it would be from the death of Fidel Castro to Cuba getting a Major League Baseball team.

      He said it depends on the timing. If it's before the Superbowl, it will be that year. Otherwise, the following year.

      He was at least 58% serious, I think. No less than 33%, for sure.

      We can expect a sudden burst of Perestroika, if not absolute Wall-smashing, once the old man dies.

      --
      There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
  2. off-shore cruise ships by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    provide an island nation it's temporary access.

  3. Will Cubans use Bitcoin? No. by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

    Will the cryptoloons and techno-anarchists ever give up trying to push their awful solution everywhere and anywhere in hopes of a price bump?

    7 transactions per second, costs more the traditions methods, no consumer protections, easy to get ripped off, impossible to use securely.

    Just let it die, already, the experiment failed.

    1. Re:Will Cubans use Bitcoin? No. by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Will the cryptoloons and techno-anarchists ever give up trying to push their awful solution everywhere and anywhere in hopes of a price bump?

      No. Completely mechanizing currency is attractive, because removing the human element supposedly makes it immune to corruption. Also, Bitcoin is modeled after the gold standard which happens to be fashionable right now, along with anarcho-capitalism in general. Dunno what happens when the continuing economic tailspin breaks that spell, but assuming a total collapse is averted people will still need to make payments online, sometimes without donating to PayPal or the banks in the process.

      And of course, even if they all gave it up, the USA would continue marketing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

      7 transactions per second, costs more the traditions methods, no consumer protections, easy to get ripped off, impossible to use securely.

      Consumer protections are independent of the payment method. Also, the only "traditional method" cheaper than Bitcoin transfer is handing someone cash in person, which is not possible over the Internet.

      Just let it die, already, the experiment failed.

      There doesn't seem to be any indication whatsoever of failure. What do you base this assertion on?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    2. Re:Will Cubans use Bitcoin? No. by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      >Consumer protections are independent of the payment method

      Lie. You can burn Bitcoin, accidentally or on purpose, and it's irreversible. With other electronic methods you can't, and with physical cash there are circumstances under which the money will be replaced.

      >Also, the only "traditional method" cheaper than Bitcoin transfer is handing someone cash in person

      Lie. Bitcoin has transaction fees, and many informal studies done (when done by non-Bitcoiners) show it can't compete with the evil Western Union, never mind a normal credit card for day to day transactions. The case studies where the work is shown, and you can check the numbers yourself. The kind you never see Bitcoiners producing when trying to prove their case.

      >There doesn't seem to be any indication whatsoever of failure

      Lie. Those who did adopt it are dropping it because it gets them no business, and it costs money to support. In fact, the typical story is, "Small business adopts Bitcoin, sees no business, drops Bitcoin, receives dozens or hundreds of threats from people who never actually bought anything".

      It's also dead as a store of value - the market value has tanked so you can't make it look attractive to the "get rich quick for nothing" crowd without going back to the very beginning for a comparison point.

      Then, of course, there's the fact that there isn't a market small enough in the world to be supported by Bitcoin transactions given how slow the network is.

      The only fix for Bitcoin's problems involves trusted third parties as middlemen - something that's fundamentally against the core reason to use Bitcoin - and those middlemen always seem to be businesses based on defrauding Bitcoiners.

      Seriously, don't you feel the slightest bit of guilt lying to get new suckers into the pyramid scheme to bail you out?

    3. Re:Will Cubans use Bitcoin? No. by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      Lie. Bitcoin has transaction fees, and many informal studies done (when done by non-Bitcoiners) show it can't compete with the evil Western Union, never mind a normal credit card for day to day transactions. The case studies where the work is shown, and you can check the numbers yourself. The kind you never see Bitcoiners producing when trying to prove their case.

      Holy hell, you've never used Western Union in your life or you would know they're the biggest rip-off on the whole planet, their fees are extreme.

  4. It's funny they cite Ookla’s Net Index by tlambert · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's funny they cite Ookla’s Net Index, given that the site has been dead since last week (take down August 4th, but not updated for a while before that), and it relies on statistics gathered by their "Internet Speed Test" site, which is not going to be accurate for Cuba, since it relies on "nearby" central nodes for the testing.

    They have a peering connection via optical fiber to Venezuela (restricted), and a relatively slow link to Sprint in the U.S., which has to be the source of the Ookla numbers for them.

  5. So what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I would accept dramatically slower internet in exchange for the best healthcare system.

    1. Re:So what by Trepidity · · Score: 2

      Move to Soviet Nordland and you can have both good healthcare and fast internet. :) No sun, though.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  6. "Only" 1.6 Mbps? by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just checked when we passed 1.6 Mbps average here in Norway - that was around 2005-2006. So one of the poorest connected countries in the world is just as good off as we were ten years ago. So you probably don't want to use YouTube and Netflix much, but seriously.... there's no problem downloading a Linux ISO or whatever else you want over a >1 Mbps line if you got a few hours.

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    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:"Only" 1.6 Mbps? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      1.6Mbps is enough to watch a low-quality stream on Youtube. You need about 5 or 6 for 1080p. When my 6 Mbps connection is actually providing that (which it only does early in the morning, I'm lucky to see 4 at this time of day) I can watch 1080p content on YT. Netflix is actually a little less bandwidth-hungry. You can watch 480p at around only 2 Mbps, maybe less.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:"Only" 1.6 Mbps? by garcia · · Score: 2

      I have a 1.3mbit connection at my lake home and Netflix and Amazon work incredibly well. Believe me, I was absolutely shocked it worked at all, let alone still looking "ok" on a 720p TV.

    3. Re:"Only" 1.6 Mbps? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Just so you understand: that's probably the speed going into the country. It sure as hell isn't what people are getting, because for the most part people don't have it, because the idea of having something like a computer is pretty uncommon.

      That's not an "average" by any stretch. It's the best they can do for a limited number of places.

      The average Cuban lives in quite a bit of poverty, doesn't have the internet coming into their home, likely doesn't have a phone, lives in what we'd call some pretty terrible conditions, has to hitch hike to and from work, often travels in buses and vehicles we'd consider deathtraps and which are entirely different from the modern Chinese made buses the tourists travel in.

      Your average Cuban isn't thinking of YouTube and Netflix and Linux ISOs ... they're thinking about what they need to do to get their next meals.

      People who are trained as engineers would rather work as bartenders on a resort because they can make some pretty fantastic money in tips.

      Let's be 100% explicit here: this poorest connected country isn't where you were ten years ago. A very very limited group of people have something almost approaching what you had ten years ago. The average Cuban lives in what most Westerners would consider squalor in a lot of ways.

      Many Cubans live in cinder-block homes with chickens scratching around int he front yard. Those people sure as hell don't have the internet at any speed.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re:"Only" 1.6 Mbps? by erikscott · · Score: 1

      It's the bandwidth for the entire countries' upstream link to the rest of the world. Which, in incorrectly-rounded-off numbers, is equal to exactly one T1 line.

    5. Re:"Only" 1.6 Mbps? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      When I last went to Cuba (about two years ago) I was surprised at the number of compute devices. There is an underground sneakernet as well - they take a flashdrive and share its content with all sorts of people. I believe they were selling or renting the content or the device. I am not sure where they got the content but I know some hotels and some universities have internet access.

      My hotel did not have internet and my cell phone did not do a damned thing except eat battery power and play what content I had thought to save. I was told that I would have limited internet access and cell use. I had set up my home to use as a VPN, cheating and using VNC to do it, but that was to no avail. I went via Canada because I am a Canadian citizen (I am Micmac, partially). It was my third trip there.

      I am also an American citizen and, frankly, I feel we need to back the hell off and let Cuba be Cuba. There is no need to have an embargo against them. If anything we should be sending them fucking aid. I spent every available dollar that I could there and I may have dropped additional currency in my hotel room or at bars. Oops... (I forget how much it was but you're limited in how much you can spend there.)

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:"Only" 1.6 Mbps? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      No. What makes you think I am adverse to helping them? I am kind of fond of both of them. Fidel did what needed to be done and is hardly "bad" when compared to most every other nation on the planet.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  7. free movement of currency by manu0601 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Free movement of currency means speculators can attack your currency. A country can deal with it if it has big change reserves, just like Russia a few months ago. I do not have hard data on Cuba, but I do not see how they could hold hundreds of US$ billions in their central bank, given that they have been embargoed for decades.

    Therefore I am not sure free movement of currency is what Cuba needs right now.

    1. Re:free movement of currency by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      Cuba holds a large reserve of US$ because of remittances.

      This means some cubans have US$, but what about Cuba's central bank reserves? This is what matters when a free-traded curency is under attack.

  8. Can't Let The Week Begin Without A Bitcoin Story by westlake · · Score: 2

    Will Bitcoin be used by Cubans and Americans to sell goods and services without the knowledge of their governments? Cuban offshore developers might be the first to use Bitcoin.

    Three guesses and the second two don't count.

    "Which foreign currency is in common use throughout the Caribbean and frequently adopted or accepted as legal tender? "

    Currency substitution: Anchor currencies: US Dollar

    Now a harder one:

    "If prosecuted for an economic crime with $100 million in assets at stake, would you prefer to be tried and sentenced in Cuba or the United States?"

    Cuba sentences Canadian CEO to fifteen years on financial charges

  9. Re:Why do people think bitcoin is anonymous? by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

    Why do people think Bitcoin in anonymous? Well, because at this point people with analytical and critical thinking skills have long since fled Bitcoin if they ever got in in the first place.

    Fools and scammers, that's the Bitcoin space right now.

  10. Re:ILLEGALS GET THE FUCK OUT by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    Alright, so the only people left with be the original natives, right? Everybody else, back to Europe and Africa!

  11. Re:Shut up about bitcoin. by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2

    Yeah, Bitcoin sucks. Dogecoin will prevail!

  12. Colour Revolution by stimpleton · · Score: 1

    Cuba: beware the "Colour Revolution".

    AKA covert United States foreign regime change actions via endorsed internal uprisings and popular movements.

    --

    In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
  13. Re:Why do people think bitcoin is anonymous? by jandersen · · Score: 1

    "sell goods and services without the knowledge of their governments".

    Legal, financial transactions of any kind are known to the government of all countries with a certain level of technology; this is mostly for purposes of taxation. This has been the case, at least in principle, for something like a century, give or take, so it is hardly an argument against the 'Evil, Communist' government of Cuba. In fact, I would say that most people in most civilised countries would see tax-evaders as being on the wrong side of the fence, since most people can see the sense in contributing to resources we all benefit from.

  14. slashdot's unironic irony by retchdog · · Score: 1

    Every other article: complaints about how websites are bloated and online video is mostly bullshit.

    This article: OMG 1.5Mbps isn't enough to watch videos online!1!1!! lollololol commies!

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  15. Cuban Offshore Developers? by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Uh, I believe they use it already.
    There was a movie about one of them, particularly successful, entered the canon of classics. The title was "Scarface".

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