Cuba's (hopefully limited) ADSL expansion

Home ADSL is less important than other interim, stopgap measures like WiFi parks and El Paquete Semanal.

In 2015, ETECSA announced/leaked a plan to make ADSL service available in 50% of Cuban homes by 2020. I was skeptical. Doing so would mean investing a lot of money for obsolete technology between 2015 and 2020.

They just announced the availability of ADSL connectivity at homes in portions of seven cities and, by December, they say some home connectivity will be available in every province.

ETECSA first tested, then offered ADSL service in Old Havana. Only 600 customers opened accounts after the test period, leading me to speculate (and hope) that the ADSL project would end given the low acceptance rate. I was wrong, but I still don't think ADSL will or should reach anywhere near 50% of Cuban homes.

Let me digress a bit to explain why I think ADSL is a bad idea. ADSL requires a telephone line from one's home to a phone company central office where the DSL equipment is installed and the central office needs a fast enough connection to the Internet to handle the traffic of all the customers it serves. Deteriorated wiring, a long distance from a home to the central office or a lack of backhaul capacity from the central office to the Internet reduce connection speed.

For example, in my neighborhood Frontier offers ADSL service at speeds ranging from 1.61 Mbps to 6 Mbps. (The FCC defines "broadband" as 25 Mbps or more). My home is about two miles from my central office and it was built just after World War II, so the fastest speed they can offer me is 3 Mbps. That has not changed since I discontinued ADSL in the 1990s. ADSL technology has improved since that time, but Frontier has not invested in new equipment because their ADSL service is clearly inferior to that offered by cable TV companies.

Perhaps ETECSA has a commitment to their DSL equipment vendor, Huawei, or they are able to make a profit serving a few customers at the high prices they are charging today, but I can't imagine them making a large investment in this technology. (see prices below).

I don't have the details, but my guess is that only a few central offices will be equipped for ADSL in each new city and a relatively small number of people in served neighborhoods will choose to pay the prices they are charging for home Internet service. (I wonder what percent of their current Havana and Bayamo customers are businesses or homes of people who rent rooms or work at home).

As such, I don't see this slow, expensive, restricted service as very important. It should be considered an interim, stopgap measure, like WiFi parks or El Paquete Semanal, while ETECSA plans "leapfrogging" to next-generation technology and, more important, regulation and infrastructure ownership policy in the 2020s.

Cities served, prices and connection speeds

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Update 10/4/2017

ETECSA has released details on their recent ADSL expansion. There are answers to 85 frequently asked questions including this list the popular councils in which ADSL is available:

ADSL is now available in portions of 16 popular councils in addition to previous availability in Havana and Bayamo. Around 600 homes have subscribed in Havana.

In 2016 there were 764 central offices in Cuba (719 of them digital). I don't know if some central offices serve homes in more than one popular council or if there are some popular councils served by more than one central office, but even with this expansion, ADSL is only available to and affordable by a small portion of Cuban homes.

My guess would be that the central offices that have been upgraded to allow for ADSL are in relatively affluent neighborhoods and many subscribers are businesses or people renting rooms in their homes, but that is just a guess and it would be interesting to see a survey of ADSL subscribers.

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Update 10/16/2017

When ETECSA held a home connectivity trial in Havana last year, 868 people participated and over 600 contracted for the service. They are now extending the availability of home connectivity to portions of seven Havana municipalities: La Habana Vieja, Centro Habana, Revolution Square, Havana del Este, San Miguel del Padrón, La Lisa and beach. (It had been available in only two up till now).

Note that all locations in those municipalities will not be covered -- I suspect that is due to distance from an ETECSA central office, a lack of backhaul capacity and/or the poor wiring condition.

They also announced a home service price cut -- 15 CUC for 30 hours per month will now get you 1 Mbps instead of 256 kbps. (The release said 1 megabyte, but I suspect that was a typo).

Perhaps ETECSA is able to recover the cost of their DSL and infrastructure investment at the speeds and prices they are offering, but this is clearly not the path to widespread home connectivity.

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Update 10/17/2017

ETECSA has released the number of Nauta Hogar subscribers outside of Havana: 232 in Pinar del Río, 225 in Holguín, 134 in Guantanamo, 79 in Granma and 142 in Las Tunas. Most of those are 1 or 2 Mbps.

With a reported subscriber count of 600 in Havana, this brings the total number of homes with ADSL connectivity to a little over 1,400. As of 2015, there were 996,063 residential phone lines in Cuba. They clearly can not and should not count on using ADSL to reach the 50% availability level mentioned above.

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Update 12/26/2017

Last week, ETECSA announced the availability of DSL connectivity to 821 potential clients in Santiago de Cuba, a city with a population of 433,527 in 2015. The announcement singles out two neighborhoods, so I suspect that two central offices were upgraded to offer DSL service and evidently only 821 homes have good enough copper wiring to receive data from them at 4 Mbps. (There are 719 digital central offices in Cuba).

It is telling that they proudly announce such a modest achievement -- reminiscent of the coverage of Kcho's WiFi hotspots. (I'm tempted to mention Donald Trump at this point, but will resist the temptation).

Last May, ETECSA announced the goal of being able to offer 38,000 home DSL accounts. I doubt that they came close to that goal. The goal for 2020 is to offer connectivity to 50 percent of Cuban homes. As of 2016, there were 1,322,002 residences with fixed phone service in Cuba. Their goals are not achievable and, as I stated above, that is good news. At the price ETECSA is charging, very limited DSL coverage may pay for itself or make a little profit, but it is only a temporary stopgap for very few people.

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Update 12/30/2017

ETECSA is offering their Nauta Home DSL service in Camagüey. It looks like three central offices are able to offer DSL and this map shows the approximate areas they serve, presumably at up to 4 Mbps. For reference, the road shown around Camagüey is about 18.5 miles long.

DSL Internet available in some Bayamo homes

Nahta home user in Havana (source)

In February, I heard that ETECSA was testing home DSL in Bayamo. They are now offering the same home DSL plans in Bayamo as in Havana.

The announcement said that, as in Havana, access would be limited to homes within a limited area -- probably within a specified distance from the central office(s) that are equipped for DSL. I have heard about similar projects underway in Santa Clara and Las Tunas, so we can expect the service to eventually be rolled out to limited areas there as well.

ETECSA says they will be making this service available in 38,000 homes during 2017. If they are serious about their avowed plan to make DSL available to 50% of homes, they have a long way to go (but I doubt they are serious about doing so).

The Cuban home-connectivity trial ends this week, rollout to begin next week

The free home-connectivity trial in Old Havana will end this week. Two thousand homes were eligible for the trial and I was told, off the record, that 700 people have signed contracts to pay for the service. I am not certain, but my guess is that those two thousand homes are served by a single central office that has been upgraded to offer Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connectivity. (The revised contract count is lower -- see the 5/1/2017 update below).

I don't see home-connectivity prices on the ETECSA Web site yet, but I've been told off the record that the prices will be:

15 cuc 30 horas, 256 kb/s
30 cuc 30 horas, 512kb/s
45 cuc 30 horas, 1mb/s

The Web site Cibercuba says the prices will be approximately:

15 cuc 30 horas, 256 kb/s
50 cuc 30 horas, 512kb/s
70 cuc 30 horas, 1mb/s
115 cuc 30 horas, 2mb/s

Both sources agree that users will be required to recharge at least once per month, so these are minimum monthly charges and neither says whether unused hours will accumulate or be lost. I also assume that the speeds quoted are for downloading data from the Internet and that the upload speed is slower -- that the DSL links are asymmetric.

Regardless of which estimate, if either, is correct, the prices are high relative to Cuban incomes and the service is slow by today's standards. I was surprised to hear that 700 of the 2,000 eligible homes signed service contracts after the Old Havana trial. Some of the 700 customers may use the Internet for room rental or some other form of business to offset the cost. I recall parts of Old Havana as having stores and businesses, but am not familiar with the specific area in which the trial was held. (The revised contract count is lower -- see the 5/1/2017 update below).

I've also been told that starting next week, connectivity will be offered in Bayamo and Santa Clara -- I don't know how many central offices are in those cities, but my guess is that they will start with densely populated areas. I'm also unsure whether they will give a two-month free trial, as they did in Havana, or will charge from the start.

These installations are consistent with the home-connectivity plan that was leaked in June 2015. That plan promised to make home Internet connectivity available to 50% of Cuban homes by 2020. If the acceptance rate of 700 out of 2,000 homes were to hold up, 17.5% of Cuban homes would be online by the end of 2020. (The revised contract count is lower -- see the 5/1/2017 update below).

Of course there are many factors that would throw that estimate off. The feasibility and speed of DSL connections is a function of the distance of the home from the central office serving it and the condition of the wiring between the home and the central office. Demographics and incomes also vary. I suspect that the infrastructure in the Little Havana trial area is better than average as are the incomes and degree of familiarity with the Internet.

Regardless, DSL speed ranging from 512 kb/s to 2 mb/s is extremely slow by today's standards. I had 5 mb/s DSL connectivity at my home in the 1990s.

I have consistently suggested that Cuba plan to leapfrog today's technology and consider installing next generation technology if possible. With this DSL rollout, they are recapitulating Internet infrastructure evolution from dial-up, to DSL. (They skipped ISDN :-).

I can only speculate on why they are taking the approach they are. Some would say they are afraid of the political implications of modern Internet connectivity. While that may have been the case at the time the Internet was just beginning, it is now clear that one-party governments like that of China have no problem remaining in power while exploiting the Internet. Bureaucracy may play a role, but I am sure there are people at ETECSA who understand that there are alternatives to DSL. Perhaps they are able to finance the DSL rollout on their own and are unwilling to accept foreign investment. (The role of ETECSA shareholders and their degree of control is unclear).

The end of the Old Havana trial and the availability of home connectivity in two more cities will generate a lot of publicity, but it remains a drop in the bucket if Cuba aspires to a ubiquitous, modern Internet.

Central office equipment upgrade for DSL Internet (source)

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Update 1/3/2017

The Cuba 2.0 blog has done two posts on the home connectivity trial -- here and here. Those posts confirm several of the things I have been told and reported above and add several new observations. For example, some users reported that the service was unreliable, dropping connections and not being able to reach the DNS at times. It is hard to understand why that should be the case since Cuba 2.0 reports that the wiring to premises has been upgraded.

They also confirmed our speculation that the trial took place in atypical parts of the city -- areas with many self-employed people, shops and rooms for rent to tourists. That means we can not expect the same acceptance rate as seen after the end of the trial, pushing the goal of slow DSL connectivity into the distant future -- to say nothing of affordable, modern home connectivity.

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Update 5/1/2017

I had been told that about 700 people had signed up to pay for ETECSA Hogar service but, evidently, that estimate was incorrect. (It may have been an estimate of the number of people using the service during the free trial). ETECSA reports that there were 858 accounts during the free trial period and 358 paid accounts as of March 14th. As shown below, the majority were low-speed accounts.

Source