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.

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! ;)

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.