*Cuba’s government has rejected the proposal by its US counterpart to scrap a plan to install a new undersea telecommunications cable to Cuba. On 30 November a US government committee recommended that the federal communications commission (FCC), a US government agency, deny an application by ARCOS-1 USA Inc. and A.SurNet Inc. subsea cable system (ARCOS-1 Cable System) to modify the system by adding an additional segment directly connected to the US through a new landing station in Cuba. The committee said that it presents “
unacceptable risks to US national security and law enforcement interests that cannot be mitigated”. As submitted to the FCC, the ARCOS-1 Cable System application would have allowed for the only direct, commercial subsea cable connection between the US and Cuba. This raised national security concerns, as the cable-landing system in Cuba would be owned and controlled by Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Empresa de Telecommunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA), which the US government committee adds means that the Cuban government could access sensitive US data traversing the new cable segment.
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