UPDATED 19:05 EDT / DECEMBER 13 2016

INFRA

Google to boost Cuba’s Internet speed with local servers

Alphabet Inc.’s Google has hastily completed a new deal with Cuba’s state-run telecom that will bring high-speed Internet servers to the island nation.

According to Google, the deal will greatly improve speeds for many of Cuba’s Internet users, particularly for Google’s services.

“Google and Cuba’s national telecom provider ETECSA have signed an agreement to deploy the Google Global Cache service to help improve the online experience for Cubans who are using Google products,” Google said in a blog post signed by Marian Croak, vice president of access strategy and emerging markets, and Brett Perlmutter, head of strategy and operations for Google Cuba. “This deal allows ETECSA to use our technology to reduce latency by caching some of our most popular high-bandwidth content like YouTube videos at a local level. This in turn means Cubans who already have access to the Internet and want to use our services can expect to see an improvement in terms of quality of service and reduced latency for cached content.”

To say that the United States and Cuba have a complicated history would be an understatement, but relations between the two countries have been slowly improving in recent years in what some media sources have dubbed “The Cuban Thaw.” In 2014, President Obama announced a plan to normalize relations with Cuba, and in 2016 he became the first U.S. president to meet a Cuban head of state since 1961.

In Google’s announcement, Croak and Perlmutter noted that Google first started building its partnership with the Cuban government in 2014 when the search engine giant introduced a number of its products to the country, including Google Chrome, Google Play and Google Analytics. More recently, Google provided Cuban users with access to its vast library of Chrome extensions and themes.

“Taken together, all these projects are tied to Google’s core values to make the the world’s information useful and accessible to everyone regardless of cost, connectivity, and language barriers,” Croak and Perlmutter concluded.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google rushed to complete its deal while President Obama was still in office, as President-elect Trump has publicly questioned whether the U.S. should be renewing closer ties with Cuba, and it is unclear how trade with Cuba will be affected by the new administration.

Photo credit: Konrad Lembcke _DSC6445 via photopin (license)

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