U.S. Team Telecom recommends against ARCOS-1 cable to Cuba

The U.S. Department of Justice's Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector, which is informally known as Team Telecom, is advising the FCC to deny a cable-landing license application to modify the ARCOS-1 Cable System to include a new authorized landing point in Cojimar, Cuba. The license would have enabled the only direct, currently operable commercial cable connection between the United States and Cuba.

The Committee said the cable landing in Cuba presents "immitigable risks to the national security and law enforcement interests of the United States" because the landing in Cuba would be owned and controlled by the state-owned telecommunications monopoly.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1554426/download

• The Americas Region Caribbean Ring System (ARCOS-1) is a fiber optic submarine communications cable of 8,400 kilometers that extends between the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico. It first entered service in 2001.