Ship carrying fiber-optic cable arrives in Cuba

Ship carrying fiber-optic cable arrives in Cuba

HAVANA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A ship carrying the undersea fiber-optic cable to hook up to Cuba from Venezuela docked at the port ofSantiago de Cuba in eastern Cuba, First Deputy Minister ofInformatics and Telecommunications Ramon Linares said here onTuesday morning.

He said that the installment of the cable will be finished onWednesday and an official ceremony held, to be attended by seniorCuban and Venezuelan officials.

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

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

This 70 million U.S. dollars project is expected to improveInternet service in the country, which has been depending onsatellite 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 LuisPerdomo said on Monday at the opening of the InformaticsInternational Convention and Fair 2011 that the cable will allowInternet service to reach 640 gigabits per second.

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

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

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

Currently, only 1.9 million out of the 11.2 million Cubanresidents have access to the Internet, according to officialfigures. The Cuban government allows Internet access to limitedsectors such as research and tourism, which remains slow and costly.