Pranesh,

This is old news in terms of where Cuba and Cuban-US relations stand 
today. It is part of the history of the various tricks/strategies the 
U.S. attempted toward Cuba in the past.
The mainly symbolic opening of the Google assisted Wi-Fi facility in 
Cuba earlier this year, the visit by the U.S President, and by Google's 
Vint Cerf and other Google staff,
are signs of a change of the structure of the relationship.

But inside Cuba other than a slow roll out of public Wi-Fi access points 
in Havana (10 hours of access cost a month's average wages) things are 
changing slowly, and some services are blocked.
Things could change fast but that would require a decision at the 
political level. As has been stated repeatedly,
Cuba has the technical ability to move fast, but the technical people 
don't have either the resources or a policy green light to go forward fast.

Sam L.



On 31/03/2016 7:29 PM, Pranesh Prakash wrote:
> Renata Aquino Ribeiro <[log in to unmask]> [2016-03-29 11:45:20 -0400]:
>> About the increase of internet access in Cuba - a request for comment by
>> Cuban representatives in the audience - the US is seeing very positively
>> and encouraging increase of internet access for trade in the region
>
> The U.S. government has been doing a whole lot more than encouraging 
> increase in Internet access:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/world/americas/us-says-it-tried-to-build-a-social-media-site-in-cuba-but-failed.html 
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/in-cuba-misadventures-in-regime-change.html 
>
>


-- 
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in an unjust state" -Confucius
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Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar)
Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3
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