ETECSA and the French telecommunications company Orange SA, signed an agreement to deploy a submarine fiber optic cable that will connect the island of Martinique and Cienfuegos.
According to the Cuban telecommunications company, this investment will be made by the subsidiary Orange Marine and will make it possible to “expand and diversify international capacities in the face of the growing demand for Internet connection and broadband services.”
The physical structure of the submarine cable will be ready in 2023, according to the ETECSA corporate note, although it does not specify what time of the year it will be.
The newspaper Granma, For his part, he mentions that the project has already been assigned all the necessary permits for its deployment.
The Cuban newspaper mentions the project under the name of “Arimao”, a reference to the river that runs from the Sierra del Escambray to the bay of Cienfuegos in the south of the island.
The new submarine cable “will give the country a new route for international services, which will geographically diversify the current connectivity,” the note added.
The only cable to Cuba
The island of Cuba was connected to this type of submarine cable late in 2012 through the ALBA-1 that connects La Guaira on the northern Venezuelan coast with Siboney in Santiago de Cuba.
Until the commissioning of ALBA-1 in 201, Cuba only had a satellite connection, which was more expensive and less efficient for the country’s connectivity needs.
This, despite the fact that Cuba is surrounded by cables of this type that have largely guaranteed the expansion of high-speed Internet in the hemisphere for decades.
Last week it emerged that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommended denying a permit for the installation of the first submarine telecommunications cable that would connect the US with Cuba.
The ARCOS-1 USA Inc. underwater cable system had applied to the FCC to adapt its network to include the first and only connection of its kind between the US and Cuba.
Team Telecom Recommends the FCC Deny Application to Directly Connect the United States to Cuba Through Subsea Cable
Applicants Sought License to Modify the ARCOS-1 Cable System to Add a Cable Landing Station in Cuba to the Systemhttps://t.co/7DFJa7MlQE
— National Security Division, US Dept of Justice (@DOJNatSec) November 30, 2022
