A conference Cuban networking officials and informal networkers should attend -- meet MikroTik

MikroTik is manufacturer of wireless communication systems that ETECSA, the Ministry of Communication, schools, universities, Infomed, etc. should be aware of. They will have a chance to meet MikroTik at a full-day conference in Havana on January 15th. (The conference is free, but pre-registration is required).

I had never heard of MikroTik until they informed me of the upcoming conference. It turns out MikroTik is a Latvian company that has been making WiFi equipment since 1996 and, while they have some home and small office routers, their focus is on wireless ISP and industrial installations.

As shown below, they have world-wide distribution (they run conferences in 8 languages), but have focused much of their effort in developing nations:

MikroTik distributors -- in Havana one day?

After looking at some videos of past conferences and perusing their Web site, it is clear that MikroTik is an engineering-driven company and attendees can expect engineering and case-study content at the conference. Here are some of the presentations:

• Como evitar los ataques de seguridad más frecuentes
• Integracion de Mikrotik en la implementacion de WISP
• Ingenieria de Tráfico con Mikrotik
• Internet en alta mar - conectividad, seguridad y prevención de averías solucionados con Mikrotik
• Alimentacion autónoma y control de clima para equipamiento inalámbrico
• Estudio sobre pruebas de estrés en una red Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n

They do a lot of these conferences and archive videos of the presentations on YouTube. For example, here are the 12 presentations at their conference in Spain this year.

MikroTik conference in Madrid, October 2015

I began this post with a list of government organizations that might be interested in MikroTik, but this conference will also be of interest to the hobbyists and others who are working on informal local area networks and members of the Cuban tech startup community.

I have argued in a number of posts that Cuba should look for ways to introduce competition in the provision of Internet connectivity and software development, while remaining self sufficient. The same applies to the provision of equipment. From what I gather, it seems that Huawei is Cuba's dominant infrastructure equipment supplier -- the government and perhaps the informal networking community should take a look at MikroTik.

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Update 2/1/2016

The MikroTik wireless Internet users meeting was held on January 15th, but the location was moved at the last minute. Regardless, Diario de Cuba reported that 100 people attended the conference.

They said the majority were Street Net adminstrators, but representatives of foreign firms, embassies and non-governmental organizations were also there. There were also attendees from universities (UCI and CUJAE), Banco Popular de Ahorro, the Youth Club, Copextel. customs officials and network specialists from the Ministry of Telecommunications.

Cuba should consider MikroTik offerings along with Ubiquity, Huawei and others -- fair, open competition will benefit the people.

If you missed the conference and have Internet access, you can see videos of five of the presentation here. Two on operating a wireless ISP and one on rural Internet installation in Portugal and Guinea Bissau seem to be quite relevant to Cuba.

Below are a few photos from the conference and there are more here.

Home connectivity is coming 4Q 2014 and there are 11,000 Nauta accounts

EFE reports that ETECSA plans to offer home Internet connectivity in the fourth quarter of 2014. They also hinted that some mobile connectivity may be offered at that time.

The connections will use DSL, not dial up, according to Jorge Legrá, Director of Strategic Programs ETECSA.

There was no mention of the costs of the home service or the places it would be available. It is clear that Cuba's poor domestic Internet infrastructure is hampering wider usage.

Legrá also discussed the new Nauta access centers, saying that ETECSA sold about 11,000 accounts in the first 15 days they were offered. He acknowledged that prices were high and would be adjusted over time.

Legrá also gave a glimpse of the surveillance in the centers -- users must present identity documents to get online and a session can be suspended for "any violation of the standards of ethical behavior that promotes the Cuban state."

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Update 7/11/2013

The New York Times has an article on the new access centers -- anecdotes and opinion as to what they foretell.

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 its sphere of influence," and looks at the activities of two large Chinese telecommunication equipment companies, Huawei and ZTE. Much of her emphasis is on surveillance and she concludes that "China’s transfer of technology to Cuba does not necessarily benefit Cubans. Instead China seems to be equipping the island’s information technology infrastructure with systems that can potentially spy on Cubans."

Internet surveilance is pretty well taken for granted in Cuba and China, and it is deplorable, but I wonder about the up side. Are Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies also building Internet infrastructure in Cuba?

China was instrumental in installing the ALBA-1 undersea cable between Cuba and Venezuela, but what about infrastructure on the Island? We have spoken earlier of the mismatch between the speed of the undersea cable and the obsolete domestic Internet infrastructure -- the cable is strong link in a weak chain.

That fact had to be understood before work began on the cable, but it went forward regardless. It may be wishful thinking, but I hope Cuba will use the resources and expertise of Huawei and ZTE to strengthen that weak chain by, say, building a Cuban backbone or working to connect key sectors like education and healthcare -- even if they keep an eye on the users.

What happened to the ALBA-1 undersea cable?

(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

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:

1. There have been claims of corruption, and some of the peple Rodgriguez interviewed corroborate that assertion.
2. 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.
3. 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."

Or, maybe the answer is none of the above -- or all of the above.  Whatever the reason, it seems that a reported 70 million dollar investment is gathering barnacles and little more.

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.

Cuban backbone, November 2003

When the undersea cable is lit, Cuban connectivity to the outside world will improve dramatically, but we know nothing about plans for complementary improvements in the domestic infrastructure -- equipment or people -- needed to take advantage of the added external capacity.

In a comment on an earlier post asking about such plans, "Muchas Gracias" points us to a November 2003 presentation on Cuban telecommunications by the executive president of ETECSA, José Antonio Fernández Martínez.

The presentation reviews ETECSA investment, telephony, and the Internet. For me, the highlight of the presentation were two slides showing the fiber and microwave backbones. These are eight years old, and, except for Havana, say nothing about local fiber, but they are the best we have at present.

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?

Ping time from Cuba to the US

Ping is a simple utility program that comes with every Mac or Windows computer. Ping records the time it takes to send a data packet across the Internet and to receive an acknowledgement of receipt from the remote computer. A colleague in Cuba recently ran a ping test from his computer, which was on a dial-up link, to Google in California. The results were:

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.93.104] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.93.104: bytes=32 time=701ms
Reply from 74.125.93.104: bytes=32 time=751ms
Reply from 74.125.93.104: bytes=32 time=707ms
Reply from 74.125.93.104: bytes=32 time=683ms

His computer sent four 32-byte packets to the Google computer with the Internet protocol address 74.125.93.104. When the computer at Google received each packet, it sent back an acknowledgment, and the computer in Cuba recorded the time it took from sending the packet to receipt of the acknowledgement.

In this case, the first packet took 701 milliseconds, and the other three 751, 707, and 683 milliseconds respectively. The average of the four was 710 milliseconds.

Well, 710 milliseconds is only 7/10s of a second, which sounds pretty fast for a 5,100 mile round trip, but it is too slow to support many applications. For example, you would not be able to carry on a conversation using Skype. The length of the ping times and their variability (from 683 to 751 milliseconds) would make conversation impossible. Web surfing would also be very slow because modern Web pages do not come all at once -- they require many separate connections to get all the words, pictures, audio and video as well as behind-the-scenes links to computers that track your actions and insert ads.

The majority of the Ping time was due to the slow satellite connection between Cuba and the outside world. What about the time to reach another computer within Cuba? My Cuban colleague pinged a computer that was on the same ISP local area network as his:

Pinging ved-as-2.enet.cu [192.168.254.69] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.254.69: bytes=32 time=112ms
Reply from 192.168.254.69: bytes=32 time=126ms
Reply from 192.168.254.69: bytes=32 time=101ms
Reply from 192.168.254.69: bytes=32 time=103ms

The average time has been reduced to 110 milliseconds, but the variability remains high. This speed would support a Skype call and, since Cuban Web pages are on the average much simpler than elsewhere, Web surfing within Cuba would be much less frustrating than international surfing. However, the dial-up link to the ISP, coupled with relatively slow equipment in the ISP network, leaves speeds far short of those in many nations.

For example, I pinged Google from my home in Los Angeles:

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.224.84] with 32 data bytes:
Reply from 74.125.224.84: bytes=32 time=18ms
Reply from 74.125.224.84: bytes=32 time=17ms
Reply from 74.125.224.84: bytes=32 time=19ms
Reply from 74.125.224.84: bytes=32 time=17ms

The average time is 17 milliseconds and there is only 2 millisecond difference between the slowest and fastest transmission. This connection is fast enough for viewing complex Web pages and phone chats.

The bottom line is that since the Internet in Cuba is slower than the US, Cuban applications are less varied and sophisticated. (Don't let that go to your head if you are in the US because other nations have still higher speeds, enabling them to develop and deploy more sophisticated applications than we do. For more along those lines see these posts).

Will the situation change when the undersea cable between Cuba and Venezuela is operational? If your ISP or organization network is not connected to the cable nothing will change. Whether or not you can connect, is both a political and an economic question.

If you are allowed to connect through the cable, expect about 600 milliseconds to be cut out of that Ping time to Google. That will be good news, but, if you are connected using the current dial-up, ISDN or slow DSL infrastructure, you will still be significantly worse off than I am in Los Angeles.

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.

We talked about Internet access. He says only foreign people with permanent resident visas, foreign students, and business with foreign capital can get Internet accounts, and that those dial up accounts have all ports open.

Enterprises throughout the country can get DSL connections, but they are limited to Web (HTTP) applications. He has also heard rumors that pro-government bloggers get DSL connections.

He told me that Cubans are not allowed to connect to the Internet from their homes so they pay an illegal fee of 1.50 to 2.00 CUC per hour to buy time from foreign students and others who have dial-up accounts. (One CUC = US$1.08 and the average wage is 20 CUC per month).

It is legal to buy a WiFi card (if you can find one in stock) and connect at one of a few hotels in Havana or Varadero with WiFi connectivity. They charge 8 CUC per hour for access to a 128 kb/s link that is shared by all of the hotel users at the time. The second legal option is to go to a Cyber-Café or hotel which charges 2 CUC for 15 minutes of access to PC with "veeery slow" connectivity.

Education centers like universities and medical schools are connected by fiber. Within the organizations they have 100 mb/s LANs behind NATs. He recalls a time when the university he attended (I won't say which one) had only 512 kb/s connectivity for approximately 1,000 PCs. That was eventually stepped up to 2 mb/s.

He is on point-to-point Ethernet connection to enet.cu, and is able to trace the route from his dial-up connection to Google via a Newcom International satellite link. Average ping time to Google was 683 ms. Ping times to other machines at enet.cu averaged 110 ms.

He did not want to run many tests, because he feared surveillance by CuCERT. Like their counterparts in other nations, CuCERT is charged with responding to network security incidents, but he characterizes them as being like "cyber-cops, who can enter your house, pick up your HDs and walk away without previous notification."

(I tried to reach cucert.cu, but could not from the US -- not sure if it is blocked or down or both).

He gave me the IP address of a university server that was running network monitoring software. I could see graphs of traffic on the links to the university, the internal Ethernet LAN, temperature, and disk utilization on several servers. I could also reach the help desk, but resisted the urge to submit a help desk ticket request :-). You see a sample traffic graph above (click on it to enlarge it). The green line is incoming traffic and the blue outgoing. As you see, the 2 mb/s link is pretty well saturated -- surfing must be slow.

It feels cool to see the graphs, and I bet they would be upset to know that they were visible, but they are not of much practical value except to the network administrators at that university. If one could get similar statistics from all Cuban universities, one could begin to stitch together a picture of the backbone networks.

He also confirmed that bootleg satellite TV from the US is common and found in almost all parts of the country. People buy a satellite receiver from a local supplier who gets an account from the US. Some of those people sell service to their neighbors using coaxial cable, although he thinks that activity is decreasing after several antenna seizures. The service costs around 10 CUC per month, and the viewers cannot change channels themselves.

There are "muyyyy" few people with HughesNet Internet links, and they are heavily prosecuted and can go to jail if caught. He said WiFi is everywhere, and is mainly used to share music and videos and play games. He said the government is concerned about that, but I don't understand why since WiFi is local, and I doubt that they are concerned with copyright violation on the music and video :-).

We talked a bit about the Alan Gross case. He thinks the trial and sentence were for political reasons, and the government hopes to do a prisoner exchange. Gross got a long sentence, but a Cuban could get 3-5 years for having a satellite link to the Internet. He said there are some people with satellite connection who provide service to others using WiFi access points and repeaters and homemade antennae, but, as mentioned above, that is risky business.

If you are in Cuba, how does your experience compare to what I've just described?

Cuba needs a domestic upgrade to utilize the ALBA cable. Will China help?

Commemorating 50 years of Cuba-China relations

The Cuba-Venezuela undersea cable will soon be operational. In our report on the Cuban Internet, we discussed the cable and China's role in its financing and construction. We mentioned a report stating that the cable had been financed with a Chinese loan to Venezuela, and described the Chinese role in its design and installation.

When complete, the cable will increase the speed of Cuba's international connectivity dramatically, but, what of the physical and human infrastructure needed to capitalize on that increase? Cuba's domestic network and the people and organizations that operate it have been working with low-speed, high-latency international connectivity. They are, to a great extent, living in the dial-up access era.

To utilize the capacity of the new cable, they will have to upgrade equipment, organizations, and worker skills. If they do not, the cable will be of limited value -- a strong link in a weak chain.

The Ministry of Informatics and Communications (MIC) and others in Cuba must have plans and programs for upgrading the physical and organizational Internet infrastructure.

For example, we discussed Cuban computer science education in our report, with some focus on the relatively new University of Informatics Science (UCI). UCI places major emphasis on practical work along with education -- I expect (hope) that they are involved in both training for and implementing a strategic upgrade of the domestic network.

In January 2011, MIC was reorganized and later in the month Cuba purchased Telecom Italia's 27 percent share of ETECSA. These moves may indicate a strategic shift toward support of a new domestic network.

But, what of the funding? It was reported that it cost $706 million to buy Telecom Italia out. Those funds are no longer available for domestic network upgrades, but might China play a role in modernizing Cuba's domestic Internet?

Cuba was the first Latin American nation to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1960. At a fifty-year commemoration ceremony, the Chinese pledged to "provide assistance to Cuba to help its social and economic development."

Like the US before it, China has made many investments in developing nations, and they have already participated in the undersea cable project. China has extensive experience building Internet infrastructure at home and to a lesser extent in Africa and other parts of the world. Furthermore, Huawei, a Chinese company, has emerged as a major manufacturer and exporter of Internet equipment.

How will Cuba upgrade its physical and organizational infrastructure to take advantage of the new undersea cable and what will be China's role in developing the domestic Internet in Cuba? Is there a Cuban IT plan?

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My speculation on China should be qualified by the fact that according to a Wikileaked diplomatic memo Cuba-China trade volume fell with the current economic crisis and China is somewhat disillusioned with Cuban finance.

There has been speculation that Cuba is looking for a new foreign partner, perhaps to finance new domestic infrastructure.