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 > > -- ------------------------------------------------ "It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured in an unjust state" -Confucius ------------------------------------------------ Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar) Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3 email: [log in to unmask] Skype: slanfranco blog: http://samlanfranco.blogspot.com Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852