On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Justin M. Streiner <strei...@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. http://www.usap.gov/technology/contentHandler.cfm?id=1971 Regards Marshall > > jms >