Internet Access in Cuba: From Control to Constellations
Cuba was relatively late to join the global internet. The first internet connection on the island was established in 1996 – a modest 64 Kbps link via Sprint in the United States en.wikipedia.org. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, expansion of internet access stagnated due to a combination of factors. The post-Soviet economic crisis left Cuba with scarce funds for new technology, and the government was wary that foreign internet investment could threaten national sovereignty en.wikipedia.org. Additionally, the U.S. embargo made it difficult and costly for Cuba to acquire modern networking equipment en.wikipedia.org. During this period, internet access was tightly controlled: ordinary Cubans could not legally buy computers or cell phones without special permits until 2008 en.wikipedia.org. Before then, connectivity was largely limited to government institutions and shared public terminals, often running over slow satellite links that made access prohibitively expensive en.wikipedia.org worldcrunch.com. Significant change began in the 2010s. In 2011, with help from Venezuela, Cuba installed the ALBA-1 undersea fiber-optic cable, its first fiber link to the global internet. After much secrecy and delay, ALBA-1 became operational for public use in January 2013 en.wikipedia.org, replacing the old satellite-based backbone. This new cable dramatically increased Cuba’s international bandwidth en.wikipedia.org