A Google executive has reportedly travelled to Cuba with other US business representatives earlier this week to explore ways to improve the island’s Internet access.According to US press reports, Brett Perlmutter, a New York-based member of Google…
A Google executive has reportedly travelled to Cuba with other US business representatives earlier this week to explore ways to improve the island’s Internet access.
According to US press reports, Brett Perlmutter, a New York-based member of Google Ideas, has submitted a proposal to the Cuban government, although the details of the plan are unknown.
Perlmutter and others have also met local entrepreneurs, economists and representatives of ETECSA, Cuba’s state-owned telco.
Other companies have reportedly expressed interest in investing in upgrading the country’s outdated network infrastructure.
Last month, Cuba’s finance minister Lina Pedraza said that Chinese equipment maker Huawei, which already provides infrastructure to ETECSA, was negotiating a deal with a local company, and that the market would be open to all foreign companies.
Government launches digital strategy
Earlier this month, the government published a national broadband plan which sets a 90% broadband coverage target by 2020, acknowledging that regulatory barriers had so far hindered Internet penetration on the island.
The government blamed limited bandwidth on weak infrastructure and ‘reduced capacity’ in base stations, and called for nationwide Wifi network deployment, with a particularly focus on densely-populated areas.
“Over time, we have to increase the broadband speed from 50 MBps to 150 MBps, and enable companies to launch IPtv services,” the document said.
Cuba’s communications ministry has been asked to prepare a timeline for the implementation of the new digital strategy by October 2015.
The move follows an historic warming of diplomatic relations between the Cuban and US governments, which last December announced they would gradually restore ties across a number of fields, including telecoms.
Further to the agreement, known as the Cuban thaw, a number of US companies struck deals with the island nation. Telecoms provider IDT agreed to provide international long-distance calls between the US and Cuba, on-demand streaming provider Netflix launched services on the local market and, most recently, Sprint unit’s Boost Mobile rolled out a prepaid plan for US consumers calling and texting Cuba.
