On Feb 29, 2012, at 8:17 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org> wrote:
On Wed, 29 Feb 2012, Rodrick Brown wrote:
There's about 1/2 a dozen or so known private and government research facilities on Antarctica and I'm surprised to see no fiber end points on that continent? This can't be true.
Constantly shifting ice shelves and glaciers make a terrestrial cable landing very difficult to implement on Antarctica. Satellite connectivity is likely the only feasible option. There are very few places in Antarctica that are reliably ice-free enough of the time to make a viable terrestrial landing station. Getting connectivity from the landing station to other places on the continent is another matter altogether.
Apparently at least one long fiber pull has been contemplated.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/2207259.stm
(Note : the headline is incorrect - the Internet reached the South Pole in 1994, via satellite, of course : http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/90s/ftp1.html )
As far as I can tell, this was never done, and the South Pole gets its Internet mostly via TDRSS.
hmm antartica. that's very interesting place to deploy internet services ;)
Regards Marshall