In December of 2014 the United States eased restrictions on Cuba, allowing U.S. telecom firms to start doing business in the country. In February of 2015 Netflix arrived in the country, though as we noted at the time, since 95% of the country doesn't have a fixed-line broadband connection at home and the average Cuban salary is $20 a month, it wasn't clear many would actually be able to use the streaming service.
In a move to begin the process of bringing US carriers to the island, the FCC has formally announced (pdf) that it has removed Cuba from its "exclusion list," allowing US carriers to service the Caribbean country without separate approval from the agency.
"Cuba remains one of the least digitally connected countries in our hemisphere," FCC boss Tom Wheeler said in a blog post after a recent trip to the country to meet with Cuban leaders.
"They talk about upgrading to DSL and 3G wireless. We urged them to leapfrog such linear transitions and expand to state-of-the-art services. We pledged our support and the support of U.S. companies to achieve this. It is unclear, however, just how anxious the Cuban government is to open up expanded network capabilities," Wheeler said.
It's absurd that US Telecom companies will provide Cuba with the latest telecommunications infrastructure that they refuse to provide to their own home country!