Sunday, August 7, 2011

Alba-1 cable to begin service in September or October

A blog post by Isbel Díaz Torres quotes Boris Moreno Cordoves, Vice Minister of Communications & Informatics, as saying that service improvement due to the ALBA-1 cable could begin in September or October of this year.

Díaz asks, what will begin to change at that time -- Internet access? prices? performance? telephony?

He mentions a 2008 workshop where Cuba's strategy was stated as "orderly and intensive social use of the media and connectivity." One would expect that since that time or earlier, Cuba had been planning and preparing for the arrival of the undersea cable. Installation of access and backbone network equipment must be well under way. Technicians must have been trained, service providers prepared, etc.

Díaz has looked for evidence of such planning and activity, and concludes that "It’s been almost three years and yet they still don't seem prepared." After researching the question, Díaz produces nothing but vague quotes by officials suggesting that he may be right -- that they are not prepared.

Can that be?
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4 comments:

  1. muchas graciasAugust 15, 2011 at 9:12 AM

    Hi, just a bit of speculation, last weekend I noticed a huge improvement on the quality of telephone communication to Cuba. The usual 5-10 seconds latency seems to be reduced to 1-2 seconds. Is it possible that the alba cable is already being used?

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  2. Larry PressAugust 15, 2011 at 3:05 PM

    Let us know if it stays fast and also ask around to see if others are seeing a difference in either telephone or Internet service.

    Larry

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  3. muchas graciasSeptember 15, 2011 at 10:26 AM

    Hi, I went to Cuba for a few days and came back. I heard some rumors there that ETECSA vice-president is in jail with charges for corrution, related to the fiber cable.

    Today, I read in the blog "Cartas desde Cuba" (from BBC, in Spanish) that he was one of the goverment officials in charge of the project and he made some dirty agreements with the companies involved in order to use cheaper materials and he kept to himself the difference with the budget originally assigned by the goverment. As result, the cable is useless.

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  4. muchas graciasOctober 24, 2011 at 8:01 PM

    Hi Larry, if you have some time please take a look on this slides. It is about infrastructure for communications in Cuba in 2003.It might be interesting for you:
    http://www.slideshare.net/javier.luna/fibra-optica

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