Cuba USA
Alejandro Ramos Encinosa, from the University of Havana, has written a short description of a campus WiFi project that would bring connectivity to the UH campus and nearby neighborhoods. Ramos says there are over 25,000 students on campus and only about 3,000 computers in labs. Like ETECSA's public WiFi hotpsots, students will access the network using their own devices, saving the university capital and maintenance costs.
It is noteworthy that they plan to offer access to non-students who are near the campus. A few Cubans have been able to gain unauthorized access to the networks of universities and other organizations, but it sounds like the university intends to provide open access in this case.
It is not clear whether the off-campus access will be paid or free. (I assume it will be free for students). The only free public access project I know of in Cuba was a hotspot opened up by the artist Kcho, but that was more of a symbolic photo op than meaningful infrastructure.
Free or paid, if 25,000 students and the public are to use this network, it will need a fast connection to the Internet (or even the Cuban intranet if that is the intention). I assume that backhaul capacity would have to be provided by ETECSA, in which case they might charge for public access as they do with their existing hotspots.
<random speculation>
Since I don't know what is actually planned and what the status of the project is, I can offer some highly speculative suggestions. Might students be involved in the installation of the network -- something along the lines of Net Days, which I described in a post on connecting Cuban schools? If there is sufficient backhaul capacity, could they deploy mesh networks in the neighborhoods around the campus -- perhaps look at Guifi Net or the adhoc "street net" LANs in Havana.
</ random speculation>
If you are familiar with the project, let us know about what is planned and its status.
- In A Nation With Nearly No Internet Access, A Little Bit Gets A Lot Of Hype.
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- A Drop In The Internet Bucket -- Big News Or Not?
Adonis Ortiz chats with his father, who lives in the U.S., using a free Wi-Fi network at a center run by famed artist Kcho, in Havana, (Desmond Boylan/Associated Press) The Cuban artist Kcho received permission from the Cuban telecommunication monopoly...
- A Conversation With A Cuban Telecommunication Engineer
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Cuba USA
A Universiy of Havana hot zone?
 |
| A Cuban WiFi zone on and around the University of Havana? |
Alejandro Ramos Encinosa, from the University of Havana, has written a short description of a campus WiFi project that would bring connectivity to the UH campus and nearby neighborhoods. Ramos says there are over 25,000 students on campus and only about 3,000 computers in labs. Like ETECSA's public WiFi hotpsots, students will access the network using their own devices, saving the university capital and maintenance costs.
It is noteworthy that they plan to offer access to non-students who are near the campus. A few Cubans have been able to gain unauthorized access to the networks of universities and other organizations, but it sounds like the university intends to provide open access in this case.
It is not clear whether the off-campus access will be paid or free. (I assume it will be free for students). The only free public access project I know of in Cuba was a hotspot opened up by the artist Kcho, but that was more of a symbolic photo op than meaningful infrastructure.
Free or paid, if 25,000 students and the public are to use this network, it will need a fast connection to the Internet (or even the Cuban intranet if that is the intention). I assume that backhaul capacity would have to be provided by ETECSA, in which case they might charge for public access as they do with their existing hotspots.
<random speculation>
Since I don't know what is actually planned and what the status of the project is, I can offer some highly speculative suggestions. Might students be involved in the installation of the network -- something along the lines of Net Days, which I described in a post on connecting Cuban schools? If there is sufficient backhaul capacity, could they deploy mesh networks in the neighborhoods around the campus -- perhaps look at Guifi Net or the adhoc "street net" LANs in Havana.
</ random speculation>
If you are familiar with the project, let us know about what is planned and its status.
- In A Nation With Nearly No Internet Access, A Little Bit Gets A Lot Of Hype.
In mid June, Cuba announced a plan to provide public access at 35 WiFi hotspots. As we noted, 35 WiFi hotspots is a drop in the bucket for a nation with over 11 million people, yet they have received a lot of press coverage. A Google search found 651...
- Cuba Connecting Universities With Fiber
Is this the start of a fiber backbone? Walter Baluja, Director of the Computer Science Department of the Ministry of Higher Education has announced that starting January of 2016 all academic centers in the country will have access to fiber connections....
- Connecting Cuban Schools
Cuba plans to provide Internet connectivity to all schools at all levels during the next three years. We offer a few suggestions, based in part on the US experience of the 1980/90s. Fernando Ortega, Director of Educative Informatics Services at the Cuban...
- A Drop In The Internet Bucket -- Big News Or Not?
Adonis Ortiz chats with his father, who lives in the U.S., using a free Wi-Fi network at a center run by famed artist Kcho, in Havana, (Desmond Boylan/Associated Press) The Cuban artist Kcho received permission from the Cuban telecommunication monopoly...
- A Conversation With A Cuban Telecommunication Engineer
I asked for input and test runs from people in Cuba in a recent post, and I've had an interesting email conversation with a telecommunication engineer who says he has never worked in that field. He asked me not to share his name or email address....