Google satellites potentially a challenge to totalitarian rule

"Between the cable and the wall! So is the governmentt of Cuba with Google satellites to give Internet to users who do not have access." ... "Official spokesperson said we'll have Internet at home by end of 2014. I think it will be before that with Google Satellites :-)" - Yoani Sanchez, over twitter on June 26, 2013

First four google satellites launched to provide internet to remote locations

As has been the case for the past 35 years with the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights inside of Castro's prisons, change is taking place in Cuba despite the best laid plans of the Castro dictatorship. The Committee to Protect Journalists in 2011 listed the Cuban totalitarian regime as one of the online oppressors that uses the denial of access as their chief mean of controlling the internet..

The latest evidence for this is to be found with regards to the internet and cell phones. Cuba has the lowest internet and cell phone coverage in the hemisphere. Nevertheless, inventive Cubans have found the way to circumvent government controls and get access, however limited , to both.

The Cuban government and its agents of influence try to blame economic sanctions for their policy of limiting and controlling information but the facts do not back them up.

President Obama on April 13, 2009 directed the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Commerce to take the needed steps to:

• Authorize U.S. telecommunications network providers to enter into agreements to establish fiber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications facilities linking the United States and Cuba.
• License U.S. telecommunications service providers to enter into roaming service agreements with Cuba’s telecommunications service providers.
• License U.S. satellite radio and satellite television service providers to engage in transactions necessary to provide services to customers in Cuba.
• License persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to activate and pay U.S. and third-country service providers for telecommunications, satellite radio and satellite television services provided to individuals in Cuba.
• Authorize the donation of certain consumer telecommunication devices without a license.

It was the Cuban government that showed no interest in a fiber-optic cable linking the United States and Cuba in 2009 not the Cuban embargo. Instead it went with a fiber-optic cable linking Cuba and Venezuela. Meanwhile internet access has not improved for the average Cuban.

Now officials are announcing that this is going to change, but it is interesting to note that the news arrives at the same time that Google has launched satellites to bring inexpensive internet to people in remote areas, including Cuba.

The regime is no doubt trying to figure out how to jam the Google satellites, or restrict the content that reaches Cubans while at the same time waging a cyberwar against what it perceives as its ideological adversaries. Perhaps one way to do it is to finally allow regular Cubans to enjoy improved internet connectivity via the cable from Venezuela that they have firm control over. Although, the regime may have to abandon the its chief strategy of denying Cubans access to internet they have at least nine other tactics used by other repressive regimes to limit the internet's liberating potential: web blocking, precision censorship, infrastructure control, cyber attacks on exile run sites, malware attacks, internet kill switches, detaining bloggers, violence against online journalists, and criminalizing uncensored access to internet ( ask Alan Gross about that last one.)

Cell phone usage in Cuba and in Haiti

 1 out of 10 Cubans has a cell phone in Cuba versus 4 out of 10 Haitians in Haiti

Man rents cell phone chargers in Port-au-Prince  Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

 Some argue that comparing Cuba with the United States or other developed economies such as Chile is unfair. One wonders how they will react to the following comparison between Cuba and Haiti?

In 2012, Cuba a country with a population of 11 million had 1.3 million cellphones; while Haiti a country with a population of 10 million had 4.2 million cellphones. Breaking it down on a per capita basis: 42% of Haitians in Haiti have cell phones whereas in Cuba only 12% of Cubans have cell phones.

The numbers above are taken from CIA world factbook on the Science Daily website. Havana times based out of Cuba places the number of cell phones in Cuba at 1.6 million as of May 2013.

And, before the Pavlovian response kicks in the U.S. embargo has nothing to do with it. Treasury Department regulations with regards to telecommunications in Cuba are self-explanatory:

1. U.S. telecommunications services providers are authorized to engage in all
transactions incident to the provision of telecommunications services between
the United States and Cuba, the provision of satellite radio or satellite
television services to Cuba, and the provision of roaming services involving
telecommunications services providers in Cuba. Please see: 515.542(b).

2. Section 515.542(c) authorizes persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to
contract with and pay non-Cuban telecommunications services providers for
services provided to particular individuals in Cuba (other than certain
prohibited Cubans). For example, an individual in the United States may pay a
U.S. or third-country telecommunications company to provide cellular telephone
service for a phone owned and used by that individual's friend in Cuba.
Likewise, a U.S. telecommunications services provider may enter into a contract
with a particular individual in Cuba to provide telecommunications services to
that individual.

3. Transactions incident to establishing facilities to provide
telecommunications services linking the United States and Cuba, including
fiber-optic cables and satellite facilities, are authorized pursuant to:
515.542(d)(1). OFAC also may issue specific licenses on a case-by-case basis
authorizing transactions incident to establishing facilities to provide
telecommunications services linking third countries and Cuba in certain
circumstances pursuant to': 515.542(d)(2). 

The Cuban government only allowed the sale of cell phones to every day Cubans in 2009. Whereas the Bush Administration lifted restrictions on cell phones being shipped to Cuba in 2008, when Raul Castro allowed Cubans to own them. The liberalization of U.S. regulations in telecommunications has continued under the Obama Administration.