Internet in Cuba

Internet in Cuba
Doug Madory
Nexus 2015
New York City
April 30, 2015
Discovery of ALBA-1 Activation
•  Prior to ALBA-1, Cuba entirely reliant on satellite Internet
•  September 2007 – Venezuela and Cuba state telecoms
announce plans to construct a submarine cable
•  Originally planned to be completed in 2009, but delayed
•  February 2011 – submarine cable construction is complete
•  No noticeable change in Internet service in Cuba
•  No mention of cable from Cuban government
@DynResearch
Discovery of ALBA-1 Activation
•  14 January 2013: ALBA-1 began carrying Internet traffic
@DynResearch
Current State of
Internet in Cuba
@Name Current Internet Layout in Cuba
(258k IP addresses)
Everything goes
through ETECSA
Via ALBA-1
Via satellite
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
•  ETECSA is single point-of-failure for Cuban Internet
•  Haiti has 1/8th the GDP as Cuba, but is served by
Natcom (Viettel, Vietnam)
Digicel (Jamaica)
Access Haiti
@DynResearch
Performance to Cuba
@DynResearch
Performance to Cuba
•  Continuous measurements into Cuba
reveal diurnal patterns of latency spikes
•  Consistent with congested links – Internet
gets slower when more people are online
•  However, latency spikes occur only during
weekdays
•  Cuba is mostly online during work days,
little home Internet access
@DynResearch
T W
Th F
S
S M
T W
Th F
THANK YOU!
Doug Madory
dmadory@dyn.com
@dynresearch
@Name