Cuba USA
Associated Press reporter Andrea Rodgriguez, @ARodriguezAP, has published an article stating that "mystery shrouds the fate" of the ALBA-1 undersea cable linking Venezuela and Cuba.
Cuban officials promised that the cable would in use last fall, but Rodriguez finds no evidence that it is use in government offices or elsewhere. She interviewed a dozen employees of public institutions who said they have seen no noticeable improvement in their work connections. Some said that download speeds have even gotten a little slower. She also made "multiple attempts to get Cuban and Venezuelan government officials to comment," but was unsuccessful.
She is a reporter who is on the ground in Cuba and unable to find evidence of the deployment or application of the cable.
How might we explain this? I can think of three hypotheses:
Is Ms. Rodgriguez wrong? Does anyone have evidence of the cable being in operation? I would love to hear about it and, even better, run a few pings and traceroutes.
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- What's Up With The Alba-1 Cable? Time To Follow The Money.
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Cuba USA
What happened to the ALBA-1 undersea cable?
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| (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File) |
Cuban officials promised that the cable would in use last fall, but Rodriguez finds no evidence that it is use in government offices or elsewhere. She interviewed a dozen employees of public institutions who said they have seen no noticeable improvement in their work connections. Some said that download speeds have even gotten a little slower. She also made "multiple attempts to get Cuban and Venezuelan government officials to comment," but was unsuccessful.
She is a reporter who is on the ground in Cuba and unable to find evidence of the deployment or application of the cable.
How might we explain this? I can think of three hypotheses:
- There have been claims of corruption, and some of the peple Rodgriguez interviewed corroborate that assertion.
- I have suggested earlier that a fast undersea cable would be a strong link in a weak (or nonexistent) chain if Cuba's domestic Internet infrastructure were not upgraded to utilize it. Skilled networking technicians would also be needed. Perhaps capital to upgrade the domestic network is not available.
- The Arab Spring may have frightened the government. Raúl Castro opposed the Internet when Cuba connected in the mid-1990s. In October 1997 he stated that "Glasnost, which undermined the USSR and other socialist countries, consisted of handing over the mass media, one by one, to the enemies of socialism." Perhaps he fears an Internet supported "Cuban Spring."
Is Ms. Rodgriguez wrong? Does anyone have evidence of the cable being in operation? I would love to hear about it and, even better, run a few pings and traceroutes.
- Cuba-jamaica Link Of The Undersea Cable Is Operational
Doug Madory of Renesys reports that the Cuba-Jamaica link of the ALBA-1 cable is carrying Cable and Wireless (C&W) traffic. The first plot shows Transit, a Renesys-defined metric which is a function of several variables and may be interpreted as...
- Has The Alba-1 Undersea Cable Changed Anything?
In January, I posted a note about a blog post by Renesys analyst Doug Madory showing that Cuba had begun testing the ALBA-1 undersea cable. Madory's data shows the round trip "ping" times for packets traveling between Cuba and four other cities. ...
- Chinese Technology Companies In Cuba -- What Are They Doing?
Jennifer Hernandez of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami has posted a note on her research on Chinese Technology Companies in Cuba. She notes that "through bilateral trade agreements, China has been expanding...
- Cuban Government Acknowledges Test Of The Alba-1 Cable
Click to enlarge this timelineA short Granma article confirms that the ALBA-1 cable is being tested. The article says the cable was operational last August and has been used for traffic quality testing on the Internet since January 10. The article concludes...
- What's Up With The Alba-1 Cable? Time To Follow The Money.
MIC Minisiter Maimir Mesa commenting on the ALBA-1 cableLast week I received an email from Doug Madory of Renesys Corporation, the Internet monitoring company. Doug is the analyst who, last May, provided us with smoking-gun evidence that the ALBA-1 undersea...