aNewDomain — I’ve covered Cuban Internet issues for a long time. There have been a slew of recent developments with ETECSA, WiFi and a potential Cuban fiber backbone, but I recently found a video from Voice of America (see below) that has interviews with Internet users in Cuba.
I wrote articles a while back about wired and wireless local area networks (LANs) that sprung up in neighborhoods. These were usually created to exchange files, play games and discuss life. But politics were never discussed in this context.
This video shows users — perhaps system administrators — discussing some politics, the government in Cuba and what the Internet means for them. Here’s the video:
Cuban Internet in Screenshots
I took a couple stills from the video to highlight a few interesting images I saw.
Here’s a building junction point. Quite spidery.
Here cables run across rooftops and between buildings like telephone lines.
Does anyone recognize this switch?
Adrian says, “Everybody knows that we are being watched …”
The video reminded me of the way people in rural India used to share cable TV:
It also reminded that Cuba has a strong, necessity-driven hacker, maker and DIY culture. See the bike below.
The Cuban government has deemed a number of jobs as eligible for self-employment, and “computer programmer” is one of them. This video and the recent movement in Cuba makes me hope that innovation and connectivity is on the rise for these hackers, and that ETECSA might just hire them so they can no longer hack, but help to connect their country.
For aNewDomain, I’m Larry Press.
Ed: A version of this story ran on Larry Press’ laredcubana. Read it here.
All screenshots: Larry Press courtesy Voices of America
Body image: DIY Bike courtesy of RikiMbili
