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The Internet

Cuba Says the Internet Now a Priority 115

Posted by samzenpus from the lots-of-farmville-to-catch-up-on dept.
lpress writes Cuba first connected to the Internet in 1996 through a Sprint link funded by the US National Science Foundation. A year later the Cuban government decided to contain and control it. Now they say the Internet is a priority. If so, they need a long term plan, but they can get started with low cost interim measures. There is virtually no modern infrastructure on the island, but they could aggressively deploy satellite technology at little cost and, where phone lines could support it, install DSL equipment.
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Cuba Says the Internet Now a Priority More

Cuba Says the Internet Now a Priority

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  • So release the old fart they have in prison... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:12PM (#48648359) Homepage

    The old guy there was trying to get internet to the island and they threw him in jail. Let's start with forcing the Cuban Government to take bi-polar meds first?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is Rule 104, even evil communist dictatoristos must have precious internet porn resources.

    • Re:So release the old fart they have in prison... (Score:5, Informative)

      by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:22PM (#48648421)

      The difference is that the Internet the Cuban government wants (no doubt censored and highly regulated like in China, Russia etc) is totally different to the internet that the old guy was trying to set up (which wouldn't have had the censorship and regulations)

      • Re:So release the old fart they have in prison... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @05:24PM (#48648751)

        The difference is that the Internet the Cuban government wants (no doubt censored and highly regulated like in China, Russia etc) is totally different to the internet that the old guy was trying to set up (which wouldn't have had the censorship and regulations)

        I can't imagine they aren't aware of the goal of these relations. Fidel can say communism isn't dead all he wants... but the reality is, as soon as US money starts flowing in his regime is doomed.

        • Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)

          by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @06:56PM (#48649225) Homepage Journal

          It'll be interesting to see how they choose to go. Perhaps they'll actually get something set up that is owned by the people, as their social system alleges a strong preference for.

          It'd be fascinating to see how it works without big corporations in there making choices for them on a constant basis, if they can manage to avoid that.

          Somehow, though, I keep coming back to the fact that no socialist or communist system has ever been seriously tried without some kind of de-facto dictatorship making the end goal impossible to reach. Equality is fine until the idiots who disagree want to be equal, too... All systems seem to have that particular fundamental problem. Equal unless different, otherwise ostracized.

          My cynical side tells me palms will be greased, corporations will heavily engage, and your Cuban surfer will have a pretty typical bill to pay. Be delighted to be proven wrong, though.

          • Leaving out for a minute that all western nations are socialist to varying degrees. We all collectivize portions of our societies. In most western nations primary and secondary education is free, post secondary is private in most, but free or near free in others. (France has some free university, Cuba all university is free) Ditto for health care and a variety of other sectors. In Cuba you can buy a house privately if you want to, but they have what you might call a subsidized housing program on steroid

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by fyngyrz ( 762201 )

              Fine; but Cuba is one, at least as far as I know, that doesn't have a significantly built-out Internet structure, even though the hardware to do so is pretty far down the road to commoditization. They're very late to the game, and this should (ok, could) afford them some advantages. So what I was trying to say (and apparently, saying badly) was that it will be interesting to see how they go about it.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I can't imagine they aren't aware of the goal of these relations. Fidel can say communism isn't dead all he wants... but the reality is, as soon as US money starts flowing in his regime is doomed.

          You mean like Communism is dead in China? Right. /sarcasm

    • Re:So release the old fart they have in prison... (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheBlueCrab ( 801925 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:35PM (#48648497) Homepage
      They already did release him. That's a big part of the recent thawing of relations between the US and Cuba...

    • Re:So release the old fart they have in prison... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by davydagger ( 2566757 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:58PM (#48648633)
      Was he one of the 53 "political prisoners" released from jail right after the US opened their embassy? Do you even know his name?

      Let's start with forcing the Cuban Government to take bi-polar meds first?

      No, its a change of policy. We screamed for years about trying to get the Cuban government to change its policy to a more social libertarian one, and they finally start making moves in the direction, and we call them crazy. No sir. This is a step in the right direction. No need for hostilities.

      • Was he one of the 53 "political prisoners" released from jail right after the US opened their embassy? Do you even know his name?

        Let's start with forcing the Cuban Government to take bi-polar meds first?

        No, its a change of policy. We screamed for years about trying to get the Cuban government to change its policy to a more social libertarian one, and they finally start making moves in the direction, and we call them crazy. No sir. This is a step in the right direction. No need for hostilities.

        Interestingly, the rest of the world did not join in the USA embargo. Ergo, short of not having access to US Television and soapbox operas, the Cubans lived with tourism and trade with Latin America. Canadians took Cuban vacations almost every winter. So did many Europeans. Just keep out McDonalds, Starbucks, Subways and a few other fat producing fast food outlets.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by RDW ( 41497 )

      He's not the only one. People are imprisoned on Cuba for all sorts of bizarre reasons, even when there's no evidence they've actually committed a crime. Read the shocking story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]

    • The old guy there was trying to get internet to the island and they threw him in jail. Let's start with forcing the Cuban Government to take bi-polar meds first?

      The government will install fibre around the island. From experience in other countries, they know that copper wire has a habit of getting stolen and remelted to make other items such as cooking pots.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lpress ( 707742 )
      "old fart"? You are an arrogant fool.

  • Cuban girls gone wild? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:13PM (#48648363)
    This would be a good test of the time delta between a country getting internet access and the time when they start to produce internet porn.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      Since it would be brand new infrastructure, I'm waiting for the whining posts about how Cubans in shacks made from discarded garage doors have gigabit internet access for $1/mo when Americans in Key West (50 miles away) have to make due with 5mbit DSL for $60/mo.

  • Cellular is pretty much the only reasonable option given the lack of infrastructure. It can be installed completely wireless, aside from power. And finally, an answer to where the old phones can go.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Strider- ( 39683 )

      Cellular is pretty much the only reasonable option given the lack of infrastructure. It can be installed completely wireless, aside from power. And finally, an answer to where the old phones can go.

      It already is. I was at GTMO on business, and as I was walking into one of the dining facilities, my cell phone rang. Everyone looked at me like I was from Mars, until I explained that as a Canadian phone, it happily roamed onto the Cuban cell network.

      • Does your business card state "Have torture-kit, will travel"?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Strider- ( 39683 )

          Hah, no. There's a heck of a lot more that goes on there beyond the detention facilities. The real reason though was pretty boring, I was doing some work for the on-base cable company.

    • It's not completely wireless; to get any reasonable bandwidth out to the users, you need fiber to the towers, not just T1 or radio uplinks, but that's not too hard to do. (As another poster says, the telco's run by the government, so they shouldn't have a problem getting permits, just the usual issues with new construction in old cities.)

      No reason to use old phones - the newer standards are much more efficient at spectrum usage.

      And there's been fiber to the island for a long time; the problem has been tha

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by orasio ( 188021 )

        My city, Montevideo, an oldish city, with some similarities to Havana, was also wired by a state owned telco with fiber. Also most of the urban country is already fibered.
        It's taking a bit over a couple of years, most of the city is covered, and the smallest plan is 30 dollars (or free if you a single Giga per month is enough for you).
        Of course, 35 dollars in Cuba might be expensive, but also most of the cost they had here was labor, construction salaries are high. They wouldn't have that problem over there

      • No reason to use old phones - the newer standards are much more efficient at spectrum usage.

        No reason? How will their citizens afford new phones?

        • They'll buy them cheap from China, just like we do. Maybe they won't buy the fanciest ones, or the ones hottest off the cutting edge of performance, but if you're making a device for internet access rather than mobility, it doesn't have to be as small or power-efficient.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GbrDead ( 702506 )

        > the telco's run by the government, so they shouldn't have a problem getting permits...

        No problems with corruption, too?

  • Just have Google come in (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They're capable of rolling out Fiber in hellholes like Kansas City and Austin, so Cuba wouldn't be much of a challenge.

  • Get busy with the Fidel version before they have the capability to retaliate - Sony, stat!

    • Pretty sure Hollywood has done hundreds of movies about assassinating Fidel Castro already. Fidel never cared, because he was too busy worrying about the CIA's actual attempts.

  • Satellite not needed (Score:5, Informative)

    by arielCo ( 995647 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:47PM (#48648555)

    After several years planning and deploying, they have fiber-to-the-shore, courtesy of their sugar daddies in Venezuela. [reuters.com] It's public access that's lacking, and perhaps the showstopper here isn't lack of computers but scaling up their national firewall.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jodido ( 1052890 )
      There is no "national firewall." You may be thinking of China. Or more likely not thinking at all. It's fascinating how people will invent or repeat the most badly-informed (I'm too polite to say stupidest) things about Cuba and think they're intelligent.

      • I find it quite believable, seeing how the Venezuelan govt simply issues orders to all ISPs to block the IP ranges of sites that make them uncomfortable; a famous victim is DolarToday.com, a site that tracks the black market currency exchange rate and now publishes unflattering news and opinion. I'd include a few traceroutes but I'm posting from my phone. Even pastebin.com was blocked for more than a year (haven't checked recently) because a list of URLs with leaked emails wad posted there.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by orasio ( 188021 )

          I find it quite believable, seeing how the Venezuelan govt simply issues orders to all ISPs to block the IP ranges of sites that make them uncomfortable; a famous victim is DolarToday.com, a site that tracks the black market currency exchange rate and now publishes unflattering news and opinion. I'd include a few traceroutes but I'm posting from my phone. Even pastebin.com was blocked for more than a year (haven't checked recently) because a list of URLs with leaked emails wad posted there.

          Currency black markets are not "unconfortable", they are _illegal_. I'm sure there are examples of censorship in Venezuela, but that's not one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        There is no "national firewall." You may be thinking of China. Or more likely not thinking at all. It's fascinating how people will invent or repeat the most badly-informed (I'm too polite to say stupidest) things about Cuba and think they're intelligent.

        Well, a large number of countries [wikipedia.org] have some form of censorship or surveillance system for the internet. A completely free internet is available to few people.

        So there may not be any firewall now, but that doesn't prevent them from implementing it later.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tloh ( 451585 )

      Thank You for an interesting point. I am not as informed about the particular situation in Cuba, but it seems people are ignoring some important realities about the nature of access. In any location lacking infrastructure to support the wide spread deployment of the Internet, the lack of legacy hardware is an advantage. Forget DSL and other ancient technology based on our grandfather's telephone-based communication needs. The technical problems here are best addressed using modern hardware. Freedom and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lpress ( 707742 )
      They still have some international satellite connectivity in addition to the undersea cable, but the real need is not for international connectivity but domestic access. In the short run, satellite and terrestrial wireless could make a big difference at low cost if the Cuban government were willing.

  • Uncensored Access for All (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tokolosh ( 1256448 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @04:54PM (#48648595)

    I have long wished that Google, Microsoft or even (gasp) the US Government would blanket the airspace worldwide with balloons/drones/satellites connected in an internet mesh. Then airdrop a 100 million tablets and solar chargers to third-world peasants and oppressed everywhere. Plenty of fat in the US military budget to pay for it. Imagine if a Cuban or North Korean suddenly had unfettered access to the world.

    This would be a great blow against the domination of the powerful. Oh, oops, nevermind.

  • The access is not as dire as you would imagi (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gwolf ( 26339 ) <gwolf@NosPAm.gwolf.org> on Sunday December 21, 2014 @05:01PM (#48648651) Homepage

    I have been three times to Cuba; first time (in 1999) I went to visit a friend at the Health Ministry, and they had quite a good dialup access point; back then, dialup was still the main Internet access mode where I live (Mexico). The lacking part was, of course, computer access in the population.

    The last time I was there (2010) was shortly before the connection to Venezuela started operation. I was invited to give a talk at the "Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas" campus, near La Habana. There, basically every student lives on-campus (the university is in a decomissioned Soviet base). All rooms have a computer — Old one, but working. And yes, network access was quite slow. Students also had a terribly low monthly bandwidth allowance (IIRC it was in the vicinity of 300MB), and after hitting that ceiling, there was no way to get more bits for them. It was quite interesting to see how a large group of people learnt to use the Internet with Javascript off, images off!

    There was no censorship I could find (using a regular student account). Of course, I didn't go testing everything, as I didn't want to leave my host disconnected — But the main issue was the limits derived from having a single satellite uplink for the whole nation. I was told the situation improved vastly after the fiber to Venezuela was laid, but I cannot comment first-hand on it.

    Of course, I'd expect now a fat fiber will be laid to Florida.

    • Re:The access is not as dire as you would imagi (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21, 2014 @05:21PM (#48648731)

      I agree. I went to Cuba in 2009 and in Havana I went numerous times to an internet 'cafe' in the library near Parque Central. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world but there were around 20 machines in there and I didn't have any issues (although they all seemed to run their own operating system or front end or something). I saw internet cafes in Santa Clara and Trinidad too, and when I returned to Havana I stayed in a Casa Particulare just off Prado and the guy had his own computer with internet access.
      In the cafes I even went onto the CIA, FBI and White House websites as well as looking up anti-communist blogs, all with no problems.

      But yes, it's not quite up there yet but it does exist and the Cubans want it.

      • Re:The access is not as dire as you would imagi (Score:4, Informative)

        by unencode200x ( 914144 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @08:12PM (#48649523)
        All true, but there is more to the story. (I'm Cuban by the way and half my family is still there). In much of the country in areas outside of Havana people don't have much and the homes are run down to say the least. They don't even have phones, or much food for that matter. It will take a long time to change that.
        • I also meant to add, there have been more and more mobile phones with Internet access in the last few years. Perhaps we'll see something like in some of the poorer Asian or South American countries.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by root_42 ( 103434 )

          I have been to Cuba earlier this year. We travelled around by car from the west to roughly the middle of the island. We slept in private casa particulars and talked to the local people. While it is obviously true that the villages are somewhat impoverished, I can tell you that Cuba seemed so much better developed than other latin american countries, like Peru. In Cuba, our hosts all had internet access. It was slow (dialup), but people were using AirBnB and the like to advertise their casas. They would use

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by slart42 ( 694765 )

        I was there in 2011, and similarly, I found most larger towns to have an "internet cafe" in the offices of the government operated phone agency. Access was not obviously restricted, but indeed very slow - and expensive at around 8 CUC (=8 USD)/h. If cubans were to pay the same rates, it would be well out of their reach (but I don't know if that's the case, a lot of services in Cuba charge exchangeable CUC to foreigners, but local CUP to Cubans (25 CUP = 1 CUC)).

        A lot of people working in any kind of governm

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by xvan ( 2935999 )
          Cubans have monthly quotas in the internet cafes (via tickets I believe). Obviously those quotas are not enough. We're talking about the general population. The academia, and some government jobs have higher quotas / unrestricted access.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lpress ( 707742 )
      Few Cubans can afford to use the Internet cafes or attend universities or have accounts through their jobs. The cell phones are not like those in Asia -- they are 2G.

  • Old Castro fan calls B.S! on Cuban internet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @05:03PM (#48648657)

    I'm an old Castro and Che fan from the 1960s. . After having met and talked with many Cuban exiles of my own age who have arrived in my city over the years, I now realize that the entire Cuban revolution was bullshit Things suck there. They are always getting worse. I call bullshit on Cuban government's proposal to 'allow' internet access to its citizens. That country is run by fascist assholes. They will never all access to the internet to ordinary citizens. Only Cuban 'stasi' goon-squad assholes and their trusted weasels will be allowed to view Huff Post or Slashdot.

    • I agree. All the Marxist-Leninist countries became horribly corrupt and completely at odds with communism. Communism is supposed to be a stateless society with worker ownership of the means of production. Instead, they became highly authoritarian with everything controlled by an elite: state capitalist. All the warnings of the left-communists, democratic socialists, and libertarian socialists (anarchists) proved to be correct. The combination of capitalist propaganda and corrupted Marxist-Leninist state pro

  • Let's place bets (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What will they become?
    The next :
    US/Japan (porn mega-producer.)
    Russia/Ukraine (Brides)
    North Korea (E1eeT h4ck3rz)
    Nigeria (gimme a 4, gimme a 1, gimme a 9!)
    China (Firewalled beyond belief)

    What awesome stereotypes am I forgetting? :)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Russia/Ukraine (Brides)

      Cuba is already a good source of brides to Europeans. It's only the US that has had limited access, the rest of the world travels freely to Cuba.

  • And the U.S. priority (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    will be to tap into and listen to everything. Be wary of what the U.S offers you.

  • Gah, just skip it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The internet is just a massive propaganda distrubtion and popuation-monitoring system. Why would Cuba want that?

  • More US hypocrisy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jodido ( 1052890 )
    The US has blocked Cuba's linking to the submarine cables that pass right by the island, so it's more than a little hypocritical from them to now criticize. Also, satellite is not cheap, compared to cable. Third, there are already a lot--a LOT--of Cubans on line through Facebook and other means. So know-it-alls with your sarcasm stick it somewhere else.
  • What would anyone do if they were to build the Internet infrastructure in a place where there was no infrastructure except phone lines first installed many dozens of years ago? Install those monstrous DSL cabinets all over the place only to be replaced later with coax infrastructure because speeds were too slow? How about just jump into fiber to the home/apartment building/business office/factory? Cuba might have a faster Internet the the average in the USA, although not necessarily more private than in the

  • Fidel is just now realizing how many cat videos he's missed on Youtube.

  • Internet says Cuba Whoba?

  • Why go 20th century? (Score:3)

    by BrianRaker ( 633638 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @07:47PM (#48649423) Homepage Journal
    You have a blank slate. Do it right with fibre optics everywhere. Set these people right from the start. Don't cripple them by putting in tech from the 1950s or 1980s.

  • No internet??? (Score:3)

    by kwbauer ( 1677400 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @08:05PM (#48649483)

    How could a worker's paradise not have 10-gig lines to every single room of every single house and apartment?

  • Gut everything and start over (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Sunday December 21, 2014 @09:36PM (#48649863)

    Cuba has an opportunity to leap into the 21st century.

    The only obstacle is their batshit crazy government. No one wants to invest anything in Cuba because it will just get stolen by the government. And the government is too poor to actually buy anything.

    So there you go.

  • go for fiber, it would be cool to see Cuba have better internet than most of the US.
  • It's a place (won't even call it a nation or government) where the leader is a dictator using the military, propaganda and FEAR to control all resources. The people relegated to starve and prostitute themselves. Speak your mind and go to jail or even get murdered. The signs everywhere read.. Socialismo o muerte... Socialism or Death is about right. Criminal Human Rights Violations have been constant over the 50 years. Internet access and cell phones alone (if they can even afford them) won't be enough.
    • And the big question remaining is will the US government continue to stand by and allow another group to violate human rights and crush the human spirit of the Cuban people by silencing, fleecing and starving them? Or will they finally see the Cuban Government for what it is.. a Criminal Hostage organization never really by the people or for the people. There must be blood, unrest, uncertainty and chaos during the change. And no government should mean no military for a good while.

  • I think it would be really ironic if Cuba ended up with better, more affordable Internet with better customer service than their "capitalist neighbor to the north".

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