To provide even speedier access to its arsenal of services to the populace of Cuba, Google has today signed an agreement with the government to set up dedicated servers in the communist-run island. Without compromising any privacy and data laws, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has struck a deal with the country’s telecommunication monopoly ETECSA. This development was first reported by Reuters.
Google parent Alphabet signed the partnership agreement with Mayra Arevich Marin, the president of ETECSA to provide the telecom giant with access to the Google Global Cache network. This enables the local service provider to store content from sites like YouTube and Gmail on servers located closer to the end users (i.e within the said country).
Commenting on the partnership, Google has released the following statement:
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.
The Obama Government, whose term will expire in just a couple months, have prioritized the spread of internet access as a central effort to normalize their relations with certain countries. Cuba being one of them. Thus, Google rushed to finalize the partnership after the President himself dropped their name for being the one to help improve internet access in the islandic region. The deal had to be completed under the current leadership – as you can understand the position U.S is currently in.
This move from Google will prove to be immensely beneficial for the residents of Cuba, who’ve only had limited access to slow and expensive Wi-Fi hotspots. According to a U.N agency, only a meager 3.4 percent Cuban homes which had internet or intranet access last year. But the tech behemoth is now planning to connect all 11.2 million residing on the island. The aim of this deal is to not let Cuba remain an isolated nation of the world.
This warming between the U.S-Cuba relations through inreased and improved commercial interactions will make it difficult for future leaders to revert the links that’ve already been established. The President-elect Donald Trump, on the other hand, plans to improve relations with Cold War foes via political and other concessions in the long run.
