Google’s Real Impact in Cuba Today

Google Global Cache (GGC) goes into effect

By Progreso Semanal

HAVANA TIMES — A news item from the AP news agency has reported that “Google’s GGC nodes finally went active in the last 24 hours”, wrote on Thursday morning Doug Madory, analysis director at Dyn Research which is based in New Hampshire on twitter. “It’s a milestone, as its the first time that an internet company that isn’t Cuban has stored something in Cuba,” Madory highlights.

Such an announcement, according to the article, would indicate that Cubans who already connect to WIFI will be able to store several Google services “such as Gmail or Youtube on local servers”, which belong to ETECSA, Cuba’s Telecommunications Company.

According to AP, the agreement was signed last December between Alphabet and ETECSA. Google is a subsidiary company of Alphabet Inc.

“Videos cause a high level of traffic and storing data from popular videos on local servers will improve download times and provide relief to ETESCA’s clogged international links,” Madory added.

After this announcement, we visited several internet users at the capital’s pay-for WIFI hotspots, trying to confirm whether the service they were receiving was any faster, especially when it comes to video streaming.

Some of those interviewed, more than 10 of them, confessed that they still hadn’t witnessed a difference in the speed of the connection with Google applications that are available on the island.

Furthermore, some of them added that the powerful giant Google still has a series of services that are prohibited on the island, including the ad applications Adwords, Adsense, the Google Earth map visualization service and the Information platform for developers called Google Developer.