U.S. Sets a Goal in Cuba - Open Internet

U.S. Sets a Goal in Cuba: Open Internet
Telecommunications Looms as a Top Issue, as the Top American Diplomat
for Latin America Arrives to Havana on Wednesday to Negotiate Terms of a
Detente Between Two Cold War Foes
By KEJAL VYAS
Jan. 20, 2015 5:17 p.m. ET

HAVANA—Cuba's regime, which has curbed the Internet to help prevent any
popular uprising, faces a new challenge to its policy: U.S. diplomacy.

On Wednesday, when the U.S. State Department's top diplomat for the
hemisphere, Roberta Jacobson, arrives here to negotiate terms of the
détente announced by the Cold War foes a month ago, she will lay the
path to a potential new era in connectivity for the region's least-wired
nation.

Promoting Internet access for Cubans is a top priority for Washington,
where last week the Obama administration began to permit commercial
shipments of devices like mobile phones and laptops, as well as related
software and hardware.

A senior U.S. official said that American negotiators didn't expect any
breakthroughs in the first round of talks, which are set to focus on the
details of establishing formal embassies in both countries. But the
rapprochement is raising hopes of a freer Internet on the Caribbean island.

"If there's one sentence that can sum up what young Cubans want, it's
that they want to feel like they are normal citizens in the 21st
century," said Raúl Moas, executive director at a Miami-based nonprofit
group Roots of Hope, which has sent cellphones, laptops and tablets to
the island since the Cuban government legalized those devices for
personal use in 2008.

For more than half a century, the Castro brothers' totalitarian regime
has restricted telecommunications and the media, helping it to weather
dire economic conditions and a U.S. trade embargo that might have
otherwise led to open revolt. Only Iran, Syria and China had less
Internet freedom, says a recent study by Washington-based advocacy group
Freedom House.

Cuba's National Statistics Office says one in four people uses the
Internet. But Freedom House estimates a mere 5% of the country has
unrestricted Internet access, with the rest directed to a
state-controlled intranet offering educational sites such as a Cuban
encyclopedia and email.

But there are signs that even the government recognizes that its
policies are putting the island's highly educated populace at a
disadvantage.

A Dec. 10 article in state newspaper Granma, the official Communist
Party publication, cited students at a forum voicing their frustration
over the digital divide they face with the rest of the world and Deputy
Communications Minister Wilfredo González lamenting Cuba's ranking of
153 out of 157 countries in terms of telecom infrastructure.

"There isn't any restriction against amplifying Internet access and as
soon as the economic possibilities permit, we will amplify" to homes,
Mr. González said.

Despite hopes surrounding Cuba's Internet future, state-telecom company
Etecsa offered a reminder on Jan. 12 that change here comes slowly. Days
after Cuba's Union of Journalists reported that wireless Internet
service would begin in the second-largest city of Santiago de Cuba by
the end of January, Etecsa put out a statement clarifying that it would
allow only intranet connections.

For now, home Internet service is reserved for state officials and
foreigners, while most Cubans turn to government offices, hotels, some
businesses and more than 100 government-run cybercenters around the
country. But the relatively high cost keeps the Internet well beyond the
reach of most Cubans, and the connections are unreliable.

"This is a rip-off," said 33-year-old driver Yuri Gallardo after
spending $10 for two hours of wireless access in the lobby of Hotel
Nacional de Cuba in Havana, unable to sign into his Facebook account.
"Foreigners come here and think that we're primitive because we don't
have Internet," Mr. Gallardo said. "Can you believe we're at the best
hotel in the country? Here we have 11 million people starving for
Internet. It's up to the government to loosen its grip."

Such experiences have spawned a thriving Internet black market, where
some residents—especially those with foreign spouses—rent Internet to
friends and family. One Havana resident said he is able to afford the
$60 a month for Internet service only because of his side rental business.

Some tech-savvy users, including some dissidents, are able to sidestep
government restrictions with services such as ifttt.com, enabling the
relay of cellphone text messages to social-media outlets.

Still, Internet speeds are improving somewhat. After using a slow
satellite connection for years, a Caracas-funded, $70 million submarine
fiber-optic cable line linking Cuba, Jamaica and Venezuela went online
in January 2013, said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn
Research.

The U.S. military, aiming to improve connectivity at the Guantanamo Bay
Naval Base, is building a new $31 million fiber-optic cable line between
Cuba from Florida that is set to begin operating at the end of 2015, a
spokeswoman for the U.S. Southern Command said.

The cable will eventually provide Internet to the rest of the island,
Ronald Bechtold, a former chief information officer at the Pentagon,
testified in September 2013, months after secret rapprochement talks
between the U.S. and Cuba began. "It's not going to be for the base,
it's going to be for the entire island in anticipation that one day that
they'll be able to extend it into mainland Cuba," Mr. Bechtold said. The
cable will be "a gigantic bundle," of which only some fibers will serve
military needs, he said.

If Cuba moves forward on expanding access, Mr. Madory, the Internet
analyst, said it may turn to Myanmar as a model. Since awakening from
decades of dictatorship and opening itself to foreign telecom companies,
the Southeast Asian nation has experienced an Internet boom for its 51
million people.

"There aren't that many places in the world that are a green field,"
said Mr. Madory. "If Cuba opens up, North Korea would be the only one left."

Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com

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