The U.S. government is planning to install a fiber optic cable at its naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba connecting the American outpost on the island to Miami. The rest of Cuba, however, continues to live in the dark as the Castro dictatorship remains committed to keeping its enslaved population disconnected from the rest of the world.

Via the Seattle Times:

Gitmo may get $40 million fiber-optics cable

The fiber-optics plan is the largest known infrastructure improvement for the base by the Pentagon and is subject to approval by Congress.

MIAMI — The Pentagon has decided to lay an estimated $40 million underwater fiber-optic cable from Guantánamo Bay to South Florida, The Miami Herald has learned, in the latest sign that the military is preparing for detentions and other operations at the Navy base for the long term.

"It only makes sense to do if we're going to be here for any period of time," said Navy Capt. Kirk Hibbert, disclosing the project in an interview last week before ending a two-year tour as the Navy base commander.

Construction won't start for more than a year. And communications won't come online for probably two more years.

But the American military has already notified the Cuban military to expect a surveyor ship, the USNS Zeus, off the base's coastline this summer — a first step toward getting the program funded and then out to bid.

The fiber-optics plan is the largest known infrastructure improvement for the base by the Pentagon, which has undertaken expansion and building projects in a mostly piecemeal and sometimes secretive fashion in the decade of housing war on terror captives there.

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