Cuba has contracted with France’s Orange, asking the French telecom to build an underwater cable that will link it to the island of Martinique.
Per multiple media reports, the news came about a week after the Biden administration recommended that U.S. regulators deny a request by submarine cable operator ARCOS-1 to connect Cuba to the United States through a new undersea cable landing station.
The objection from the U.S. was based on concerns that the cable-landing system in Cuba would be owned and controlled by Cuba’s state-owned telecom monopoly, Empresa de Telecommunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA). The proposal would have created the only direct, commercial undersea cable connection between the U.S. and Cuba.
No details were released about the cost or capacity of the cable, which is to be supplied by Alcatel Submarine ETECSA. President Tania Velazquez said that work had begun on the project. “Today the official act was held to begin the technical work of installing the new submarine cable, the joint work of ETECSA and Orange, which will allow the diversification of Internet connection routes in Cuba,” he said on Twitter.
The sole undersea telecom that Cuba has is to Venezuela, part of ALBA-1, an 8,400-km fiber-optic cable system that was launched in 2001. ALBA-1 extends between the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico.
Per Wikipedia, ETECSA is the sole lawful provider of telephony and communications services in Cuba, in essence, a communications state monopoly that has some eight million clients, both national and foreign.
A report at spanacom.com said that ACINOX signed an agreed with Russia’s YUMZ signed the contract to modernize a wire rod manufacturing plant at the 35th International Fair of Havana, (FIHAV 2017). The deal calls for the supply of a complete wire rolling line, including the furnace, as well as machinery to produce the wire rod at a plant in the eastern Cuban province of Las Tunas.
The story cited ACINOX Director Enrique Pazos as telling the state Cuban News Agency that the investment will allow up to 177,000 tons annual production once the project starts operating at the beginning of 2020. YUMZ will subcontract a "highly qualified and experienced Italian entity," which will supply 60% of the equipment required for the investment, he said. The Russian company will also participate in the process of commissioning the updated line and will be responsible for the training of Cuban personnel will work in the production.
The story said that Russia was one of the 63 countries that attended FIHAV. Russian Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Georgy Kalamanov, who heads the delegation of his country to the Cuban Fair, said that there are other projects are also planned to expand collaboration in the chemical industry, to modernize the light steel industry, and areas of maritime transport and agriculture. Russia was described as the fourth most active partner of Cuba, behind China, Venezuela and Spain. Of note, it said that, "In addition to strengthening cooperation economic-three years ago, Russia canceled 90% of the debt incurred by the island...as both countries support each other in the political arena."
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