Cuba, Venezuela to install undersea cable

Tag : cable installation

Cuba and Venezuela will install anundersea optical fiber cable connecting the two countries tocounter U.S. embargo, Cuba's official daily Granma reported Monday.
The cable will have a total capacity of 640 gigabytes with 320 foreach optical fiber, increasing by 3,000 times Cuba's data, voiceand video transmission capacity with other countries, said CarlosOrfilia, the Venezuelan official adviser of the project.
He said advanced technology would be used to guarantee CubaandVenezuela's independence in telecommunications.
This project will end Cuba's dependence on satellites services madeexpensive due to the U.S. embargo, said Wilfredo Morales, directorof the Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe Commpany, the Cuba-Venezuelajoint venture created to build and operate the planned cable.
The decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba has prevented othertelecommunication companies from connecting lines to the island,like that of Miami-Cancun, which is only 32 km away from pier ofHavana.
As a result of the cooperation efforts by the BolivarianAlternative for America (ALBA), a regional integration initiativejoined by Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua andVenezuela, the 1,550-km long optical fibre cable will connectCamuri of northern Venezuela with Siboney in east Cuba.
According to experts, the fiber will be as thick as a human hairand covered with a special material to protect it against sharks.
The cable designed with bifurcation may benefit other countrieslike Nicaragua and Haiti in the future.
Granma said the selection of the supplier will end in August andthe cable installation will complete at the end of 2009 at theearliest.