• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 02 / 09 / 2011

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Ship carrying fiber-optic cable arrives in Cuba. Posted on: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:53:43 EST. HAVANA, Feb 08, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) --A ship carrying the undersea fiber- optic cable to hook up to Cuba from Venezuela docked at the port of Santiago de Cuba in eastern Cuba, First Deputy Minister of Informatics and Telecommunications Ramon Linares said here on Tuesday morning.

He said that the installment of the cable will be finished on Wednesday and an official ceremony held, to be attended by senior Cuban and Venezuelan officials.

The cable stretches 5,340 miles underwater from La Guaira in Venezuela to the coast of Santiago de Cuba, and will be put into operation in July.

Later the connection will be extended to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and the Lesser Antilles.

This 70 million U.S. dollars project is expected to improve Internet service in the country, which has been depending on satellite to get around U.S. embargo restrictions.

After the cable is put into operation, the current speed of data, images and voice transmission will increase by 3,000 times.

Deputy Minister of Informatics and Telecommunications Jorge Luis Perdomo said on Monday at the opening of the Informatics International Convention and Fair 2011 that the cable will allow Internet service to reach 640 gigabits per second.

However, he cautioned that "the arrival of the fiber-optic cable is not a magic wand."

The country still needs to develop domestic infrastructure of telephony and data, which can not be done overnight.

Perdomo also said the government is committed to building a faster Internet environment for the welfare of citizens.

Currently, only 1.9 million out of the 11.2 million Cuban residents have access to the Internet, according to official figures. The Cuban government allows Internet access to limited sectors such as research and tourism, which remains slow and costly.


Source: http://sec.floridatoday.com/article/04Zj4Lf51W23e?q=Venezuela