Might ETECSA, Cuba's government-monopoly telecommunication company, collaborate with Google to provide connectivity in Havana? This post offers conjecture, but it is informed conjecture.
Consider the following:
When Google Fiber started in Kansas City, most people assumed that it was a demonstration project, intended to spur investment by the incumbent US Internet service providers (ISPs). Few thought that Google wanted to become a retail ISP.
Last October Google Fiber announced that their work would continue in cities where they had launched or were under construction, but they would "pause operations and offices" in cities in which they had been conducting exploratory discussions and they took many, but not all workers off the Google Fiber project.
Google's Project Link has installed wholesale fiber backbones in two African capitals and I have suggested and speculated that they might do the same in Havana (with the caveat that they do it in conjunction with ETECSA, since there are no competing retail ISPs in Cuba as there are in Africa).
A month ago, a friend told me that a friend of his who worked at ETECSA said the fiber trial would begin December 5.
Last week, Trump threatened to "terminate the deal" (whatever that means to him) if Cuba would not make it better.
Yesterday, nearly identical stories suggesting that the White House was pushing Cuba on deals with Google and General Electric were published in the Wall Street Journal and El Nuevo Herald.
That is all for real -- now for the conjecture ...
Maybe the trial in Old Havana will be a joint project between Google and ETECSA. Google has considerable fiber installation experience with Project Link in Africa and Google Fiber in the US. A joint project with ETECSA would be relatively simple because they would not have to deal with competing ISPs as in Africa or lawsuits and other obstacles from incumbent ISPs as in the United States.
It could either be a pilot experiment -- a trial -- or the first step in leapfrogging Havana's connectivity infrastructure. One can imagine Google installing a fiber backbone in Havana like they have done in Accra and Kampala and leaving it up to ETECSA to connect premises using a mix of fiber, coaxial cable and wireless technology.
If that were to happen, Havana could "leapfrog" from one of the worst connected capital cities in the world to a model of next-generation technology. If things went well in Havana, which city would be next?
The partnership between Google and ETECSA could take many forms. Google might supply expertise and capital and ETECSA could supply labor and deal with the Cuban and Havana bureaucracies.
In return, Google would get terrific publicity, a seat at the table when other Cuban infrastructure like data centers or video production facilities were discussed and more users to click on their ads. (Take that Facebook). Havana could also serve as a model and reference-sell for cooperation between Google and other cities. (Take that Comcast and AT&T). There might even be some revenue sharing, with ETECSA paying Google as the ISPs do in Africa.
This would also be a win for the US administration and President Obama's legacy. Trump says he wants to renegotiate "the deal" with Cuba. If so, he would find Google (and GE?) at the negotiating table along with US airlines, telephone companies, hotel chains, cruise lines, etc.
Again -- this is conjecture ... but would the Wall Street Journal print something if it were not more than a rumor -- perhaps something leaked by the White House?
A Google-ETECSA collaboration in Old Havana?
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Update 12/7/2016
Well, it looks like my conjecture was off base. December 5th has come and gone without an announcement of the fiber trial in Havana with or without Google's participation.
An article in OnCuba says that agreements were reached with Google, General Electric, Goodyear, Caterpillar and Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and Pearl Seas Cruises. It restates that Cubans have access to the Play Store and mentions their collaborated on Kcho's WiFi hotspot, but it says nothing about more connectivity or collaboration with ETECSA.
Google has refused to share their proposal with me, but I have a guess as to what it may have been and, if my guess is correct, why it was rejected.
My guess is that they proposed a fiber backbone for Havana (and perhaps other cities) as part of their Project Link. Project Link is serving two metro areas in Uganda, including the capital, Kampala and is deploying fiber in three metro areas in Ghana, including the capital, Accra.
Meshed (i. e. reliable), open, wholesale Project Link fiber backbones
It is important to note that Google is not selling retail service, but providing capacity to competing Internet service providers and mobile operators. As African Internet pioneer Steve Song points out, the Ugandan service providers have come to trust in Google -- realizing that they are not competing at the retail level and that they are offering transparent, flat-rate pricing to all comers. It is noteworthy that Google is not subsidizing Project Link -- the backbones are self-sustaining.
Until now, the wholesale customers have been Internet service providers and mobile operators, but things became a bit more interesting earlier this month, when Google announced that they had deployed a wholesale WiFi network with 120 public access hotzones in Kampala and more to come. They have signed up their first retail WiFi provider Roke Telkom.
Google WiFi antenna on a Kampala rooftop, BBC News
The service is only a few days old (I could not find mention of it on the Roke Web site), but I found a first-impression review. The reviewer did not say how many people were online, but the speed was fairly low -- about 100 Kbps. On the other hand, the sign-up process was painlessly handled using his mobile phone and the key "feature" is Roke's flat rate prices: 29 cents per day, $1.44 per week or $5.17 per month.
Well, that is my guess as to what Google proposed -- now for my guess as to why Cuba declined the proposal.
I do not know what ETECSA charges for access to their Havana fiber (or how they price it internally for themselves), but I would be amazed if it were nearly as low as what Google is charging in Africa. But I do know what ETECSA is charging for WiFi access -- about $2 per hour. Two dollars would buy more than a week in Kampala and it would not be necessary to stand in lines or pay scalpers to purchase time.
(You can check out a two-minute BBC News clip on the Fiber backbone and WiFi deployment here).
I wish Google's proposal was rejected for reasons of political mistrust, because political trust is growing among the Cuban people and distrust will fade, but mistrust seems a less likely cause than fear of competition for ETECSA. As I've said, I do not understand ETECSA's ownership structure, but I have been assured that it is government controlled. If the Cuban government insists upon protecting ETECSA's profit and maximizing government revenue, Kampala will leave Havana in the dust.
But, it is too soon and too simple to say that Google was turned away because of ETECSA greed.
Kampala has a Google backbone, but it also has competing retailers and there are no competing retailers in Cuba. Attracting retailers to a Google backbone in Havana would require the sort of trust that has developed in Kampala. They would have to be convinced that everyone, including ETECSA retail, would be paying the same price. (I would expect ETECSA retail to do quite well in a competitive Cuban market -- they have assets, employees, Cuban experience, brand recognition, etc.).
It is a lot easier to dig trenches and light fiber than it is to attract retail competitors, and Google may have been rejected because their offer came too soon.
Cuba needs time to plan a very difficult transition in which the roles of ETECSA, national and municipal governments and wholesale and retail connectivity providers are considered. Perhaps they will ultimately decide upon a Kampala-like solution with Google and perhaps other wholesalers operating open, transparent backbones. Another model is that of Stockholm, where the municipal government operates Stockab, a successful, open, transparent backbone.
Stokab investment and return, millions of Swedish Kronor
Looking around the world, there are other possibilities. In Singapore, the government acts as a venture capitalist, investing in Internet service providers.
Of course, Cuba needs connectivity outside of Havana and the world has models for that as well. At least 450 small towns and cities in the US have municipal broadband networks with a variety of ownership and regulation policies -- could Cuba model their success? (Note that the states shown in red on the map below have legal barriers to municipal networks).
Interactive map showing over 450 wholesale and retail municipal networks
India has a much larger rural networking task than Cuba, but Cubans might also study India's national fiber network, which hopes to reach 250,000 rural villages and offer non-discriminatory access to all service providers.
If the Cuban government is serious about making a transition away from ETECSA's current wholesale/retail monopoly, they need to be working on an infrastructure ownership/regulation plan. We have seen a leaked executive summary of an infrastructure plan for the next five years, but it is not focused on future technologies or ownership and regulation policies and it was leaked, not openly developed by multiple stakeholders.
Cuba needs to consider alternative infrastructure ownership and regulation policies if they hope to achieve an affordable, modern Internet. Doing so will take political will and time. The time to start planning is now.
The New York Times has published an editorial call to "bring Cuba online." they say "millions of Cuban citizens could have affordable access to the Internet in a matter of months" if only the government were willing to allow Google to go forward with a Project Link installation or invite companies to bid on mobile licenses, as was done in Myanmar.
I appreciate their goal, but there are stumbling blocks and problems with their proposal.
Google made an unspecified proposal to build Internet infrastructure in Cuba, but some in the Cuban government did not trust Google's representatives. The Times suggests Google's Project Link, which has been implemented in Kampala and Accra, as a model, but Project Project Link only provides a wholesale fiber backbone in a city, not national, retail coverage -- and it would take more than a few months to implement.
Even if the government were willing, inviting in Google or accepting Myanmar-like bids for mobile licenses, would limit Cuban technology and, more important, policy choices. Cuba has an opportunity to leapfrog technology and implement policies that will benefit the Cuban people.
I am not optimistic that that will happen, but it is possible that after 2018, when Raúl Castro has retired and the Cuban economy has improved, Cuba will have the funds and will to implement a uniquely Cuban, modern Internet.
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Update 12/9/2015
Norges C. Rodríguez Almiñán has written a thoughtful blog post, inspired by this New York Times editorial.
He starts by surveying Cuba's history of the supression of free expression and communication technology and recalls Cuba-US conflicts from the Bay of Pigs to ZunZuneo with events like the Cuban Missle Crisis and downed aircraft in between. There are bad deeds all around.
In spite of this, we have December 17th, progress is being made and Rodríguez says it is time for Cuba's digital revolution. Better yet, he promises that in his next post he will suggest steps to take on the road to Cuban connectivity -- I can't wait to read it!
Commercially, Cuba is small potatoes to Google -- a mere 11 million potential users. But what of potential creators? Google is recruiting in another small nation, Israel -- will they be recruiting in Cuba some day?
The other day, a journalist who was writing an article on Cuba contacted me to ask what Google might do there in the short run. I referred him to an earlier post in which I had listed some short term steps, but I will add some speculation on production and hosting of domestic content and infrastructure here.
YouTube has video production spaces in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, New York, São Paulo, Berlin, Paris, Mumbai, and Toronto -- how about opening one in Havana?
I won't be surprised if I see Cuban content turning up on Netflix in the near future -- along with Cuban film and animation on YouTube.
Of course, Cuba is a largely untapped source of content beside cinematic video. For example, in an earlier post, I suggested that a free, well connected Cuba could be a rich source of online education and medical information.
Google has built a MOOC platform and offered MOOCS. In 2013, they announced a partnership called mooc.org with edX that promised an open platform for hosting courses, but, over a year later, the mooc.org Web site is unchanged. However, they have been contributors to open edX, the open source edX platform. Could Google host an open edX service for Spanish language courses developed by Cubans (and others)?
The same applies to medical information. Cuba has focused on medical research, training and practice since the time of the revolution and Infomed, their medical network, predates their connection to the Internet. Could Google provide hosting services or high speed connectivity to Infomed and Cuban universities or to Cuba's Latin American Medical School for remote training and course development?
On a recent trip to Cuba, Google executives told students at the University of Information Science that they could not sell applications they had developed in the Google Play store at this time.
There may be some problem with allowing Cubans to sell software through Google Play that I am not aware of, but, if that is not the case, this would seem like a quick, simple thing for Google to do -- it would create a relationship between them and Cuban software developers.
Infrastructure
That is fine for Cuban-produced content for export, but what about domestic consumption? The Cuban economy and infrastructure can not support video distribution today -- might Google contribute to Cuban infrastructure?
Google has data centers in many cities around the world, but it is hard to imagine them building one in today's Cuba, which has little power and very few Internet users. However, for the short term, they could invest to improve ETECSA's data center.
Could they help with Cuban backbone infrastructure? Satellite and terrestrial wireless might be used for interim connectivity in rural areas, but what about Havana? Could Havana become a Google Fiber city? Even if ETECSA were to allow it, it is hard to see Google becoming a retail ISP in Havana, but might they provide wholesale backbone infrastructure as they have with Project Link in Kampala, Uganda where they have installed over 800km of fiber.
Kampala is a smaller, more densely populated city than Havana, but the GDP per capita in Cuba is ten times that of Uganda and only about 5% of the Ugandan population lives in Kampala while around 20% of Cubans are in Havana. Considering these rough figures plus Havana's advantages in health and education, Havana seems as good a place to invest as Kampala.
Havana's demographics look good, but there is one large problem -- a lack of competition. In Kampala, Google is a wholesale service provider not a retail competitor. The Internet Society lists 13 retail ISPs in Uganda, while Cuba has one, ETECSA. If Cuba is unwilling to forego ETECSA's monopoly in the retail ISP market, neither Google nor anyone else will make the sorts of investments needed to build a modern Internet.
Early this month, a US delegation headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Daniel Sepulveda, will travel to Havana to work on greater Internet connectivity "to better support access to information for the Cuban people." While the ultimate goal is to better support the Cuban people (customers), the delegation will focus on finding out how and when the Cuban government/ETECSA wants to engage US companies interested in selling them equipment and services.
Charles Rivkin, assistant secretary of state says they have received comments from many US companies and the delegation's goal is to "see what is possible from the point of view of Cuba."
Josefina Vidal, who has been leading Cuban discussions with the US said they welcome US telecommunications companies to explore business opportunities, but there a lot questions. As I said in an earlier post, the ball is now in Cuba's court. Perhaps this delegation will learn what they plan to do with it.
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Update 3/8/2015
Last week, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai said they would be expanding Project Link, installing fiber backbones "many more" African cities this year.
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Update 3/16/2015
While Google has a vested interest in increasing the number of Internet users world wide, Cuba is not an easy place to do business -- The Heritage Foundation ranks their economy as one of the least free in the world, but they are taking steps to improve the business climate.
In March, 2014 the Cuban government formally acknowledged the importance of foreign investment to their economy and revised foreign investment regulations. Foreign investment is authorized in "all sectors except those dealing with the health and education of the population and the armed forces institutions, with the exception of their business systems."
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Update 5/19/2015
Cuba recently announced a plan to bring Internet connectivity to all schools at all levels within three years and I made several suggestions for doing so in an earlier post. (I am full of free advice for the government of Cuba :-). Google could contribute to this effort in several ways. One would be in helping with a backbone network to connect the schools. I also suggested that the Cubans take a decentralized approach to building LANs at the schools, and Google could help with that effort -- perhaps using the hi-frequency wireless equipment they have been testing. Finally, the Cubans are talking about tablets for students -- Chromebooks would be better. The One Laptop per Child project has distributed laptops to over 2.4 million children -- how about One Chromebook per Child in Cuba?
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Update 6/24/2015
Last week, representatives of companies in the food and beverage, infrastructure, vehicles, insurance and international corporate law sectors visited Cuba and met with government officials, private entrepreneurs, cooperatives, journalists, economists, artists and members of the diplomatic community.
Two of the visitors, Brett Perlmutter of Google Ideas and Brehanna Zwart of Google Access and Energy, were from Google, and they reportedly came with a proposal. I don't know what they proposed, but they indicated that it was for mobile infrastructure. I've been speculating about things Google might do in Cuba -- why stop now?
Brett Perlmutter and Brehanna Zwart at OnCuba Magazine
Google has experience with fiber installation, both in Google fiber cities in the US and in Kampala Uganda where they have installed a wholesale fiber ring. Might they do the same in Havana or elsewhere? Google's fiber could be used for mobile backhaul. (Cuba is already rolling out WiFi hot spots).
But what about linking that to the Internet? It will be some time before there is a fiber path between Havana and the undersea cable at the east end of the island, but they could use O3b Network's high speed satellites. (Some time ago, I suggested that ETECSA use home satellites to reach rural areas).
This is total speculation -- I have no idea what Google proposed or what ETECSA is willing to allow, but it is fun to speculate. Going further into the future, how about Google Fiber in Havana? And, when will we see those Google baloons over Cuba?
Google Fiber cities -- Havana someday?
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Update 6/7/2018
YouTube has video production spaces in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, New York, São Paulo, Berlin, Paris, Mumbai, and Toronto -- how about opening one in Havana?
As I mentioned above, Cuba is well positioned to produce Spanish-language entertainment and education content and I suggested that Google open a YouTube production space in Havana.
The idea of opening a production space in Havana makes even more sense today than it did in 2015.
Google Global Cache (GGC) servers are now installed and operating on the Island. That means Google content can be viewed and uploaded faster than in 2015 and the result is that YouTube has made substantial gains since GCC went online last April:
There is also a growing, enthusiastic community of young Cuban YouTubers, several of whom are profiled in this YucaByte article and you can "meet" a few others in this short (5:36) video from Periodismo de Barrio:
(The YucaByte article also contains a short video sampler showing enthusiastic YouTubers).
Not exactly being a millennial myself, I am not likely to become a follower of these youthful YouTubers, but they are inheritors of a rich history of Cuban music, cinema and education.
Google executives and Senator Jeff Flake just met with Cuban president Diaz-Canel and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt who said “We already have an agreement signed that allows easier access to data. We would like to do more.”
How about opening a YouTube video production space in Havana?
Eric Schmidt and other Google executives traveled to Cuba where they met with members of the Internet community and the government. Google is providing Internet access in a few US Cities and is considering others -- might they provide Internet access in Cuba?
Of course, both governments would have to agree for Google or any other satellite ISP to connect Cubans. I believe that, if the Cuban government would agree, the US would as well.
But, the Cuban government has feared the Internet since the time of their first IP connectivity in 1996. At that time, there was high level debate about the Internet. The hard liners, led by Raúl Castro, argued against the Internet while others argued for a "Chinese" approach of supporting Internet use while censoring content and surveilling users. (It seems Fidel Castro was ambivalent).
The hard liners won in 1996, but what about today? Schmidt reports that a "number of the people" he spoke with said "the eventual model of Cuba would be more like China or Vietnam than of Venezuela or Mexico." If some of those were young government officials, there may be a glimmer of hope.
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Update, July 3, 2014
It is noteworthy that Jared Cohen, Google's Director of Ideas, accompanied Schmidt on this trip -- before joining Google, he was a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and served as an advisor to Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton.
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Update 8/22/2014
MIT Media Lab founder Nichlas Negropont gave a TED talk summrizing his work over the last 30 years. He concludes with his plan for the future -- using stationary satellites to connect the "last billion" -- the poorest, rural people -- to the Internet. (That part of his talk begins at 17:05). He mentions that he has partner in this project -- might it be Google?
Here is what he had to say:
And so my plan, and unfortunately I haven't been able to get my partners at this point to let me announce them, but is to do this with a stationary satellite. There are many reasons that stationary satellites aren't the best things, but there are a lot of reasons why they are, and for two billion dollars, you can connect a lot more than 100 million people, but the reason I picked two, and I will leave this as my last slide, is two billion dollars is what we were spending in Afghanistan every week. So surely if we can connect Africa and the last billion people for numbers like that, we should be doing it.
