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Willy Smith sent me a pretty interesting link that has news of better fiber optic cable for Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. While the story is really about Cuba - the tidbit within Cuba and Venezuela to lay undersea Internet cable is here:

... A new undersea fiber-optic cable being laid between Cuba and Venezuela will help provide high-speed Internet access to Cuban citizens by 2010. Earlier this week, Wikileaks published documents that were signed in 2006 by officials in Cuba and Venezuela describing plans for the new undersea cable that will connect the two countries.

The United States economic embargo against the island nation has forced the communist country to rely on slow and expensive satellite links for Internet connectivity, according to the Wikileaks article. Even though it would cost less and be more efficient to lay a new cable between Cuba and the U.S., which are only 120 kilometers apart, Cuba is working with Venezuela to lay a 1,500-kilometer cable to get high-speed Internet connectivity.

The proposed cable, which is being deployed by CVG Telecom (Corporacion Venezolana de Guyana) and ETC (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba), will also provide high-speed Internet access to Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad...

OK, they didn't mention Tobago. That may have been a mistake, or it could be a more telling truth where bandwidth may have to be ferried across to the sister island of Trinidad.

That said, on the surface it would seem to be good news - and with what seems to be accelerated availability of true broadband, this could well get to consumers within the nations listed depending on laws and telecom infighting... what hasn't been mentioned in the article is the cost of the use of the cable.