Pending approval, telecom plans advance

A small Miami-based telecommunications company—TeleCuba Communications Inc.—announced today that the U.S. government (i.e. the Treasury Department) has given it permission to lay the first optical communications fiber from the United States to Cuba. They are the first so far: President Obama eased long-standing restrictions on telecommunication links to Cuba in April, but other companies have yet to dive in. Of course, any company that receives permission from the United States must also receive permission from Cuba, and it is not yet clear how difficult that will be to accomplish. Cuba has long said that it is only the U.S. embargo that stands in the way of greater Internet access on the island, so theoretically they should greet TeleCuba Communications Inc with open arms.

Venezuela has planned to lay a fiber optic cable connecting it to Cuba, to be finished in 2010, but Caracas seem unlikely to meet that goal: construction has not started. And Venezuela has 966 miles of cable to lay, while TeleCuba has only 110.

TeleCuba’s planned fiber will be laid along the route of a defunct copper telephone cable from Key West, Florida to Cojimar, Cuba, and should be operating by mid-2011. It will not only lower the cost of calling the island (and of making international calls from Cuba), but also make the Internet less costly and easier to access. It is no guarantee, of course, that the average Cuban will actually have his access to the Internet broadened: the decision for such infrastructure expansion lies in the hands of the Cuban state.