Creating legislation that goes nowhere has been the hallmark of Maria Elvira Salazar’s first term in office, and the “American Freedom and Internet Access Act of 2021” falls not short from being another of those legislations that go nowhere, and she knows it. But don’t worry, Maria Elvira has a plan, and it is to blame the Biden administration by saying that they do not have the willing to take on her great ideas to free the Cuban people despite her actual knowledge of the fact that her project is technically impossible.
According to this article in the www.FloridaDaily.com newspaper, Maria Elvira has already began blaming the Biden administration by saying: “The Biden administration refused to help the people of Cuba when they needed it the most, so Congress must act to ensure we have a clear strategy to deploy in a time of crisis.” “We cannot stand by when tyrants shut off the lights and when American security is at risk. With Operation Starfall, we can improve homeland security and be ready to restore internet, freedom, and prosperity to those in need.” This is, clearly, bla, bla, and more bla, bla.
Here we will discuss every single possible technical implementation there is, including the two proposed by Maria Elvira, and we will explain why they are impossible to implement in Cuba.
Conventional Internet & Cellular Phone Wireless Internet (Mobile Broadband Internet). The Internet we Use at Home And in Our Cell Phones.
Of course, this is not proposed by Maria Elvira because (1) it is the same internet the Cuban have in their Cellular Phones, and it would be clear to anyone that this is impossible to implement in Cuba. It is well known to anyone who ever contracted internet services in the USA that for conventional internet to work, it needs at the very minimum a router and cabling to the internet provider.
Moreover, the internet we receive in our cellular phone needs three fundamental components to work, (1)”cell towers to create a WiFi network that your devices connect to, (2) those towers must be connected to the provider via fiber optic cabling or a satellite connection, which is very expensive and needs an antenna with a modem installed at each tower, and (3) a network of towers connected among them via microwave technology in the whole country. See more technical information here.
In other words, providing internet using conventional Mobile Data Networks is impossible. The Cuban dictatorship would not allow the U.S. to get inside the island and built the infrastructure needed to provide this kind of internet service. Let’s remember what happened to Allan Ross when he was falsely accused of working for American intelligence services for trying to enter a cellular phone into Cuba. See this article for more technical details. It is also clear to any Cuban that the Cuban dictatorship would not allow the US to implement, inside the island, the infrastructure necessary to have conventional, or wireless internet.
Maria Elvira’s Fallacious Proposal. Stratospheric Balloons
During the events of July 11, 2021, Maria Elvira put out one of her fallacious projects called, the “Operation Starfall” which consisted of stratospheric balloons, aerostats, or satellite technology capable of rapidly delivering wireless internet anywhere on the planet from high altitudes.
She is mixing two different technologies here, (1) stratospheric balloons, and (2) Satellite technology. We will explain each one separately to prevent confusion. However, it must be clear in your mind by now, that as many of the lies of Maria Elvira, those two technologies are impossible to implements.
Stratospheric Balloons
In this case Maria Elvira was talking about a pilot project that the U.S. Government had with Google which was called “Project Loon” and which was discontinued in January of 2021, before the successes of January 7, 2021.
Project Loom was a total failure. It failed because, to implement it, you needed a network of balloons floating in the air and they must be in directed from a ground base. However, even when it sounds very simple, remotely controlling those balloons’ movement movement was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to manage.
Those balloons were supposed to float at the as high as commercial airplanes. This was, clearly, another disadvantage because the Cuban dictatorship would have not doubted for a second to blow those balloons off if they were positioned over the island. Consequently, Maria Elvira knew that as of January 2021, Project Loom was not available and even if it was available, it was impossible to implement it without the Cuban government shooting down the balloons.
Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellite Internet
After people realized that Maria Elvira had lied to them, with the so-called Stratospheric Balloons, they harshly criticized Maria Elvira for her blatant lies in people’s faces. But… no worries. Maria Elvira had a plan to keep lying to the Cuban people and those of us who want Cuba to be free.
Upon realizing that Elon Musk had successfully deployed internet services in Ukraine, Maria Elvira lost no time and rushed to rescue her failed project by stating that she was asking Elon Musk for help. This was, as everything that Maria does, another lie which she knew to be impossible. However, as she blamed the Biden administration for not deploying internet services in Cuba, she was using Elon Musk as another scapegoat, this way she had one more person to blame.
Does Satellite internet works? Yes. Would it had been possible to implement it in Cuba? No. We must go back to ground 0. What is is it needed to successfully deploy satellite internet? “SpaceX’s Starlink hardware includes a satellite dish and router, which you’ll set up at home to receive the signal from space.” Moreover, the cost to implement the technology in one single house is of $110 per month and $599 for the hardware. A cost that had to be assumed by the U.S. Taxpayers. See this article for more technical details.
Maria Salazar knew that (1) due to the nature of the Cuban Dictatorship, entering such equipment into Cuba was impossible, and (2) convincing the US government to use our tax money to fund something like this was also impossible.
Why would Maria Elvira then propose something she knew would go nowhere? In my opinion, the other choice Maria Elvira had during the successes of July 11, 2021, was to ask for an intervention of the U.S. Government, something that was against the interest of the Cuban dictatorship, and she would never do something to affect the dictatorship’s interest. Consequently, Maria Elvira just did one more nonsense proposal to keep her constituency happy with the never-ending talk about Cuban Freedom.