Cuba Welcomes New Internet Cable

Cuba has welcomed the attainment of an undersea fibre-optic line joining it to Venezuela as a blow to the US mercantile embargo.

The line will renovate communications in Cuba, that has amid the slowest internet speeds in the world.

The new connection will make download speeds 3,000 times faster - at least is to tiny minority of Cubans who have internet access.

It should moreover make general phone calls sufficient cheaper.

The 1,600km (1,000 mile) line from Venezuela was financed by the Bolivarian Alliance is to Peoples of Our America (Alba) - a severe informal organisation founded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Cuban Information and Communications Minister Medardo Diaz mentioned it "reinforced Cuba's sovereignty" and "opened a breach" in the US mercantile blockade.

The line would "be at the service of our people, as a apparatus to swell the ranks of its development, formation and sovereignty" when it became functional in July, he added.

Until now, Cuba has relied on internet and general write connectors around satellite, that is costly and slow.

Cuba's comrade supervision has always blamed its bad communications links with the outward world on the decades-old US traffic embargo, that has prevented the designation of a twine ocular line to Florida, only 144km away.

Broader access?

The attainment of the fibre-optic line has lifted massive expectations in Cuba, says the BBC's Fernando Ravsberg in Havana.

According to authorized Cuban statistics, only 3% of the race have access to the web - the lowest figure in the horse opera hemisphere.

Access is limited and existing only with supervision consent - nonetheless given 2009 Cubans have been able to use internet cafes, often in hotels, and there is a burly black marketplace for internet connections.

Last November the authorized Communist Party newspaper, Granma, sought to descend expectations.

"The underwater line will supply aloft high quality communications, but not indispensably meant a broader prolongation of the same," it said.

The Cuban supervision says there is no "political obstacle" to the internet in Cuba.

But opponent groups - inclusive the distinguished anarchist blogger Yoani Sanchez - say the authorities have always sought to manage sources of data and giveaway expression.