Increased Use of Satellite Technology in Guantanamo Mountains

The Telecommunications Company of Cuba S.A. (Etecsa) installed in Guantánamo, this year, five VSAT system equipment, which provide satellite connectivity service to communities in the mountains, as part of the process of computerization, improvement, and expansion of the population's access in terms of communications.

Lenin Asín Ordúñez, head of the Etecsa Investment Department in the territory, explained that the Reinaldo Góngora Lara school, from the community of Monte Verde, in Yateras, and Omar Ranedo educational center, located in the faraway community of Veguita, in Imías, benefited from this system.

With these two links, there are 30 centers of the Ministry of Education connected, among them, primary schools, day care centers, secondary schools..., as part of a program that seeks to benefit 100% of institutions.

Asín Ordúñez specified that VSATs were also set up in the communities of Vega Grande, in Manuel Tames; Lagunita Arriba, in Imías; and Playa Blanca, in Maisí, to provide voice service through public telephones, one of the primary services in the country's telecommunication structure, and to which resources and investments are allocated, yearly, to eliminate silent zones.

VSAT technology works with an antenna that receives and transmits data and, although expensive due to the price of the equipment and the payment of the link, it’s very effective for interconnecting residents of places far from traditional communication networks.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff