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CUBA-VENEZUELA
Fiber optic connection would facilitate cooperation
•
Basis of a Latin American network that would
guarantee telecommunications independence for
nations included in the Bolivarian Alternative for
the Americas
BY LILLIAM RIERA —Granma
International staff writer—
• A submarine fiber optic cable
that would connect La Guaira in Northern Venezuela,
with Siboney in the eastern province of Santiago de
Cuba, would break the U.S. telecommunications
blockade of the island while facilitating
cooperation in areas such as health and education
between the two countries.
Julio Durán Malaver, president of
TELECOM Venezuela, the counterpart of the Cuban
TRANSBIT enterprise for the construction of that
cable, affirmed to Granma International that
this connection would facilitate the transmission of
a great quantity of information more quickly and
with higher quality, thus fostering the development
of mutual cooperation and joint projects in science
and culture.
For Durán, who was in Havana for
the 12th International Informatics Convention and
Exhibition 2007, this first physical connection
within the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
(ALBA) — an integrationist initiative promoted by
President Hugo Chávez and the antithesis of the U.S.
annexationist FTAA project— will provide the basis
for a Latin American network aimed at guaranteeing
telecommunications independence for the nations
belonging to that accord.
He explained that the cable
would have two bifurcations, one in the vicinity of
Cuba and the other close to Venezuela, allowing
interconnections with other countries of the
Caribbean and Latin America, which could then access
cheaper telecommunications services than those
offered by private providers.
Granma International
also learned that within the
framework of the cooperation agreement signed by
Cuba and Venezuela, TELECOM Venezuela and Cubatel
S.A. have implemented joint projects of great social
importance that strongly support the development of
this sector in the homeland of Simón Bolívar.
Among those projects Durán
emphasized work in technical-productive training, as
well as in the supervision and control of the
construction and installation of a nationwide fiber
optic data transmission network in Venezuela (where
a public fiber optic cable does not exist). He
pointed out that work has been done on the west-
south branch, which extends from the south western
border with Brazil to the northwestern border with
Colombia.
According to Durán, the western
branch is finished, the southern is in progress, and
construction on the central prong will begin in
April of this year.
In 2005 Cuba paid more than $4
million to access the Internet via satellite because
connection to the submarine fiber optic cable is
barred by the 40-year-old U.S. blockade, the
Ministry of Informatics and Communications (MIC)
reported last year.
On that occasion, Roberto
Santiesteban Hernández, director of the DATOS
Business Unit of the Cuba telecommunications company
(ETECSA), part of MIC, explained that cable
connectivity to the Internet is faster, of better
quality and between 15% and 25% less expensive than
via satellite.
On January 24, 2007 an agreement was signed in
Caracas for the creation of a joint venture between
TRANSBIT and the Venezuela state telecommunications
company (TELECOM) which would be in charge of the
construction of that 1,552-kilometer submarine cable
which should be completed in early 2009. |
