renesys | GIZMODO.cz

An underwater fiber cable linking Cuba and Venezuela has given the island a hard connection to the internet since 2011, but reports have said that only government bodies from both countries have used the line. According to internet and network analysis firm Renesys, the cable lit up with activity last week with data flowing through it between Telefonica and the nation's state telecom company, Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA). Presumably, this could signal use by the average joe. Traceroutes into Cuba through the new Telefonica path show markedly lower latencies than the Caribbean country's existing satellite-reliant connections, hinting that the cable has been flipped on -- at least in one direction. It appears that the ETECSA is using the line for inbound data while leaning on satellites for outbound traffic.

Despite the clues, a GlobalPost correspondent in Cuba says there has been no perceptible improvement in internet speeds as of yet. Castro and Co. may not have said a peep about the development, but the new Telefonica path surfaced the very same day Cuba nixed the requirement of exit visas for citizens to travel outside its borders. Hit the source link for network stats and the nitty gritty details.

[Image credit: Phil Guest, Flickr]

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Source: Renesys

It's no secret that Hurricane Sandy has worked a number on communications infrastructure, but now a time-lapse video created by Renesys gives us a clearer picture of when and where internet outages occurred as the storm made landfall. Green squares on the map above indicate that 99.95 percent of networks in the area are reachable, while red squares denote that more than five percent of networks are down. In Manhattan's case, Renesys estimates that there was only a ten percent failure, which it considers impressive since power was cut to much of the island. Ten percent may not sound like a huge outage, but the firm points out that population density makes it equivalent to taking a country the size of Austria off the grid. As for the 90 percent of networks in the borough that stayed online, they survived thanks to generator power. If you'd like to witness the playback of outages between October 29th and 30th, head past the jump for the video.

Continue reading Time-lapse map shows internet outages as Hurricane Sandy makes landfall (video)

Filed under: Internet

Time-lapse map shows internet outages as Hurricane Sandy makes landfall (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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