Broadband To Hit The South Pole

Albanach writes: "According to this story from the BBC bids are being invited to lay a fibre-optic cable some 1600 kilometres over polar ice, linking researchers at the South Pole with the rest of the planet. Currently, researcher's communications rely upon older satellites that have drifted from their geostationary orbits into ones that are now at least partly visible from the pole. The new cable will be laid on top of the 4km ice cap, and will have to cope with repeated freezing and stretching as the ice moves."

Comments

finally

[tps12]

I guess this means we can expect to hear from Tux more often.

Re:finally

[smcn]

I'm waiting until it gets to the North Pole so Santa will actually recieve my emails.

Challenge

[spencerogden]

This seems like an awefully expensive, challenging way to fix this problem. Are they going to need repeters to stretch fiber that distance?

what about my house?

[gmr2048]

and i cant get DSL cuz i'm 200' too far from the CO?

Distance

[Pyrosz]

Can you just imagine what your ping time would be while playing Quake? Sheeesh. At least my Athlon wouldnt need the super fan I have on it now, just stick it outside to run. Although I suspect it would melt a hole in the ice! ;)

Re:Distance

[RobertNotBob]

Imagine running into the group of researchers in a quake match.....

Sure, their ping times are all 200, but they are clocking their CPU's to 17GHz and rendering at 64,000 x 32,000! On the bigger maps, they can snipe you from their spawn to yours.

hmmm

[Pig Hogger]

I wonder if the routers will freeze more often. But of course not! They will use Linux, and so will be perfectly at home!

Weird

[Mupp252]

Broadband? South Pole? Internet? Penguins? I know there's some sort of wry humor in there somewhere.

This sounds...

[Idimmu Xul]

cool :)

.aq top level domain

[Insightfill]

Finally, we'll start getting more .aq sites out there!!

Re:Why bother?

[mikeplokta]

Unfortunately, it turns out that the earth is a sphere. I know, who would have thought it? But given that, there's the slight practical problem of beaming the microwaves or other wireless connection through a thousand miles of solid rock.

Re:I can hear it now --

[JJC]

Poor old Rob, they'll probably have broadband on Mars before Holland, Michigan...

Two Towers

[dfenstrate]

Maybe they could just put up two really tall towers, one at each end, and do microwave transmission.
Then, if something ever breaks due to the extreme environment, you'd know where to find the problem.

Now, just how tall would those towers have to be?
Well, if the target station is at 75 degrees, then...
7926 miles (earth diameter)/2 - cos((90-75)/2)*(7926 miles)/2 = 34 miles.

hmmmm... maybe a cable is a better idea after all. Can someone check my math?

Re:Two Towers

[curunir]

As long as you're connecting The Two Towers, why not use a couple palantírs?

Is it still that Barber Pole?

[sharkey]

And does it move? Or has progress killed it off, just like the barber poles here?

Re:Fat chance.

[mikeplokta]

The calculation is easy if you assume the station at the south pole is exactly at the axial pole, the earth is a perfect sphere, and the station is on the surface of the sphere. It has to be infinitely deep. Those assumptions are all simplifications, but in fact they're all reasonably accurate.

FINALLY!!!!

[southpolesammy]

However me and the other penguins are probably going to get busted for swapping illegal Whale Song MP3's now....

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live on THIS continent and I CANT get broadband. Why are they getting it before me?

What the hell?

[batquux]

The south pole gets broadband before *I* do in Ohio????