Canadians travelling to CUBA for rest and relaxation often complain about excruciatingly slow internet connectivity. The reason internet in Cuba is so slow is that all traffic goes through an aging satellite infrastructure.
Imagine my surprise when traffic monitoring company, Renesys, said it believes Cuba turned on it's underwater Internet connection (via Venezuela) for the first time. It detection an internet connection between the Spanish ISP Telefonica and the national Cuban telecom company (state owned of course).
Analysts don't believe this connection is being used by regular citizens yet and it seems to be unidirectional inbound only (which may be a misconfiguration or a special setup). The unidirectional traffic means traffic can flow inbound over the faster cable but must leave Cuba via the satellite system.
Could this be a show of oneness by the Cuban government? Could they be preparing to slowly open up the internet for the average Cuban? Only time will tell.