This has to be a symbolic gesture, and hopefully one that rewards Cuban Internet interests. Currently, this isn't a viable offering for the average resident. I've travelled around plenty of Cuba, and Internet there will not support streaming media. Think poor dialup speeds from the early 1990s, flakey timeouts, dropped connections constantly, and you're imagining Cuban net access.
I've not sampled the connections available to government officials, but until Cuba gets a huge overhaul (read, installation) of a proper internet infrastructure, and peering to multiple countries, they won't be able to make use of this.
Wikipedia has some figures from 2011-2013, which says the "total bandwidth between Cuba and the global Internet is just 209 Mbit/s upstream and 379 downstream" for "2.8 million users" [1]. A bit of a personal reflection, but my life would be much different, in terms of work, education, and entertainment, if I did not have access to reliable high speed internet.
Ignoring the Internet speed part, I think the average Cuban takes home around $20/month too.
Just feels like giant PR fluff, it would have been interesting to see them offer cheaper and lower bit-rate service for Cubans that won't completely saturate their networks.
I don't get it. Why? This can only be symbolic. Why not take it to Russia, China even.
If this is symbolic it means netflix is willing to do things which don't go toward profit but are willing to do 'symbolic' things. Meaning they are okay with not making money, if that thing fits their ideology --which is fine, great, but it just means there are other things which affect them beside a motive for profits or altruism or free expression, etc.
It's like Caterpillar saying, we're going to build an asteroid-digger.
Or the WWF deciding to build a do-do bird conservation area.
Some additional details on access to the Internet in Cuba:
1) There is only one ISP in Cuba: Etecsa. Cubans can not buy an Internet account from them to use at home, accounts must be used a special cyber cafes around the island at exorbitant rates by the hour/megabyte: http://www.etecsa.cu/?page=internet_conectividad&sub=interne...
2) Foreign entities, either persons or enterprises can have an interned account, dialup or broadband, See the rates section for "Acceso dedicado" on the same page. from 22 USD a month for 20h at dial up speeds all the way to 30010.00 CUC for 3.4 Mbs. Thats over $30000 USD.
3) Some cubans have dialup accounts either internet or limited access to several national networks on which a proxy can be found (usually not legally) this covers doctors, artists, athletes and others.
4) There is a booming black market for dialup accounts with rates going from 50 to 120 CUC (60 to 140 USD), usually foreigners time sharing their accounts but other type of accounts can be found if you know the right people (illegal and prosecuted).
5) Most universities have internet access with very limited bandwidth (~2mbs) shared among students and professors.
A few years ago, I read that cuba had like 250 MBPS for the entire island. A cuban guy told me that dial up was as expensive as a cheap appartment. (I dont know if their band has broadened, because Venezuela said publicly that they would connect a cable to them, but never heard of it actually happening).
Considering the extremely little bandwidth they have, a homebrew wireless 'cable' from Florida or Mexico would be a game changer for Cuba.
I guess this is more of a symbolic gesture than anything else but I will take it as reminder that we take for granted so easily the fruits of a free market economy like united states while actively encouraging government involvement for the so called "fairness". Cuba is probably most fair among all countries. Almost everyone is pretty much destitute.
This article and the press release by Netflix fails to mention anything about their DVD rental service. Since Cuba's current internet infrastructure has not been developed, streaming videos seems a bit premature. Some may dismiss this as a token gesture, but I believe it would be smart for Netflix to expand in Cuba as they did originally in the US.
Funny, I think it was 60 minutes which had a story about Cuba that mentioned there was no internet in the country. Reporters seem to get a lot of facts wrong.
Refer to page 3, where it is reported that 74.5% of households 25 years and up had some internet subscription (and 73.5% had high-speed access). That's no small number, but you could easily call "3 in 4" short of ubiquitous. Note that many of the remaining households have some form of access to the internet, just not a subscription at home.
Wikipedia puts the fraction of the U.S. population using the internet at about 81%.[1] They link to a source, but beware it links straight to an excel file[2].
You would be surprised (maybe?) at the number of rural areas in the U.S. that do not have any real type of access. My parents, for example, are limited to ~1mbit downloads on good days. They cannot stream Netflix and really can't stream Youtube videos either. That 1mbit is with random bursts of noise/packet loss as well. It's pretty crappy. I tried to game there once and saw my latency fluctuate between 200ms and 10,000ms.
[+] [-] lordbusiness|11 years ago|reply
I've not sampled the connections available to government officials, but until Cuba gets a huge overhaul (read, installation) of a proper internet infrastructure, and peering to multiple countries, they won't be able to make use of this.
[+] [-] WestCoastJustin|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Cuba
[+] [-] SG-|11 years ago|reply
Just feels like giant PR fluff, it would have been interesting to see them offer cheaper and lower bit-rate service for Cubans that won't completely saturate their networks.
[+] [-] ecoqba|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corin_|11 years ago|reply
- Average monthly wage in Cuba is $17
- 2.8m people with access to internet (26%)
- 3.3m people with computer access (31%) "at home, work or school"
- "A modest computer with a monitor costs $722 in Cuban stores, and at least $550 on the black market", so I suspect more at work/school than at home
- "The country has 53 broadband internet accounts today"
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/09/netflix-launche...
[+] [-] mc32|11 years ago|reply
If this is symbolic it means netflix is willing to do things which don't go toward profit but are willing to do 'symbolic' things. Meaning they are okay with not making money, if that thing fits their ideology --which is fine, great, but it just means there are other things which affect them beside a motive for profits or altruism or free expression, etc.
It's like Caterpillar saying, we're going to build an asteroid-digger.
Or the WWF deciding to build a do-do bird conservation area.
[+] [-] Scoundreller|11 years ago|reply
But there is a subset of the population earning good tips working in the tourist industry and receiving funds from family living outside of Cuba
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|11 years ago|reply
More interesting is the tight range. ISTR that it was about $4-$25 when I visited there in 2002. Today it's $9-$30.
[+] [-] tertius|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gandalfu|11 years ago|reply
1) There is only one ISP in Cuba: Etecsa. Cubans can not buy an Internet account from them to use at home, accounts must be used a special cyber cafes around the island at exorbitant rates by the hour/megabyte: http://www.etecsa.cu/?page=internet_conectividad&sub=interne...
2) Foreign entities, either persons or enterprises can have an interned account, dialup or broadband, See the rates section for "Acceso dedicado" on the same page. from 22 USD a month for 20h at dial up speeds all the way to 30010.00 CUC for 3.4 Mbs. Thats over $30000 USD.
3) Some cubans have dialup accounts either internet or limited access to several national networks on which a proxy can be found (usually not legally) this covers doctors, artists, athletes and others.
4) There is a booming black market for dialup accounts with rates going from 50 to 120 CUC (60 to 140 USD), usually foreigners time sharing their accounts but other type of accounts can be found if you know the right people (illegal and prosecuted).
5) Most universities have internet access with very limited bandwidth (~2mbs) shared among students and professors.
[+] [-] drnex|11 years ago|reply
Considering the extremely little bandwidth they have, a homebrew wireless 'cable' from Florida or Mexico would be a game changer for Cuba.
[+] [-] jpatokal|11 years ago|reply
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/25/cuba-confirms-alba-1-fibe...
[+] [-] tn13|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pg_bot|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aceperry|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmariani|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TillE|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|11 years ago|reply
Wait, what?
[+] [-] dietrichepp|11 years ago|reply
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication...
Refer to page 3, where it is reported that 74.5% of households 25 years and up had some internet subscription (and 73.5% had high-speed access). That's no small number, but you could easily call "3 in 4" short of ubiquitous. Note that many of the remaining households have some form of access to the internet, just not a subscription at home.
[+] [-] smeyer|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_States#A...
[2] http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/statistics/...
[+] [-] robflynn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmelbye|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gbraad|11 years ago|reply
U.S. ???