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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.

7 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.

    --
    Place something witty here
    1. 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
    2. Re:Room for Growth? by SQL+Error · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    3. 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.

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. 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.

  3. "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
  4. 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.