HAVANA, Cuba.- At the beginning of 2011, Cuba and Venezuela began the installation of a submarine fiber optic cable that would provide broadband Internet access to the island. No matter how promising the initiative seemed, Cubans could only enjoy said access through public organizations, institutions and companies; as well as foreign entities and companies.
The project had been announced in 2007 with hype and cymbal by the then Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunications of Cuba, Ramiro Valdés, at the VI Summit of ALBA. Supposedly, the link would multiply the speed of data transmission to and from the Island by three thousand times. According to the general, it would have an “unlimited capacity and it would take years to fully occupy it.”
The cable, named ALBA1 and with a length of 1,630 kilometers, was to start operating in July 2011; but he did it in January 2013, without the Cuban authorities offering any explanation for the delay.
The project was carried out by the joint venture Telecommunications Gran Caribe (TGC), created in 2007 with 60% of funds coming from TelecomVenezuela, and 40% contributed by the Cuban Transbit. The president of the firm was the Venezuelan colonel Wilfredo Morales Márquez, while the position of vice president was held by Waldo Reboredo Arroyo, who was imprisoned in July 2011 along with other officials of the state monopoly ETECSA.
That wave of layoffs is still shrouded in mystery, although there is no shortage of those who associate it with delays and failures to make the cable work, or with events of corruption.
The truth is that the original project included an open connection to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. In addition, it would allow Venezuela to connect with Europe and all the Caribbean islands; and Cuba with Jamaica and Central America. Until today, only the link with Jamaica has been made.
With the recent installation of fiber optic cable Arimaus between the province of Cienfuegos and the island of Martinique, there are four of their type on Cuban soil, two of them owned by the US Government to connect the Guantánamo Naval Base with Florida and Puerto Rico. Only ALBA1 offers a connection to the islanders, a service that users consider very expensive and of poor quality.
