Slashdot Mirror
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."
Slashdotters are all just faggots.
First Jon Katz sucks balls post!
And no, I don't care that he didn't post this story. He still sucks.
I guess this means we can expect to hear from Tux more often.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
This seems like an awefully expensive, challenging way to fix this problem. Are they going to need repeters to stretch fiber that distance?
Spencer Ogden
Insert obligatory Linux-Penguin-Broadband conspiracy theory here.
i had a tp (third post) earlier, like always.
let's try for first!
They can bring broadband to the South Pole, but they can't bring it to Podunk, Iowa?
Michael Loves Me!
Maybe I have a shot at getting broadband too now?
The Researchers will be able to download Mp3z at the south pole!
The Good Life
For a moment there, I thought it said "kids are being invited".
;)
I was thinking research grants must have really dried up
and i cant get DSL cuz i'm 200' too far from the CO?
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! ;)
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
I wonder if the routers will freeze more often. But of course not! They will use Linux, and so will be perfectly at home!
We now where the new largest collection of pr0n will be located.
How long until we see hardcore antarctican porn sites?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
... since broadband hit North's Pole
Imagine being called out to fix a fiber optic break down there.
Wouldn't it be much easier to establish a permanent cable connection to one of the islands off of Antarctica where ice variations would not be an issue? Then you could establish a wireless relay (microwave or other) from their to the south pole stations.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Broadband? South Pole? Internet? Penguins? I know there's some sort of wry humor in there somewhere.
cool :)
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
napster got shut down. they were hoping to steal MP3s as long as they dont link to my site its OK by me
Well, wonderful... we can get broadband to the south pole, but tough luck if you live in Cow's Ass, Montana.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Come on, spend some money and get a sat link. Yeah, not so fast but you'll still get your kazaa pr0n fix.....
While I applaud efforts to bring the less advantaged (such as the Native Americans living in the region) online, I can't help but wonder if this is going to cause more harm than good. Weren't there some stories recently about icebergs melting or cracking or something? Sending high speed (==high energy) photons through the region is unlikely to help that problem much. I don't think anybody wants to "wire the world" at the cost of rising sea levels.
"If they can get broadband to the South Pole, why the hell can't we get it where we live?"
It's amazing how they are going to put
:-P
"broadband cable 1600 km over polar ice"
Or do you mean across polar ice...
I think cable 1600 km over polar ice would be far more impressive though.
~ kjrose
To the south pole we go!
What's next? Now they can build a Nuclear Fusion reactor down there and work from a safe distance!
Will somebody save tux's family?
Live Fast, Die Young, and leave a flat patch of fur on the highway!!!
those researchers probably dont know that napster got shut down.
Napster is dead; long live WinMX, the successor to Napster for Windows and x86 Linux.
Will I retire or break 10K?
you'd think that all of north america would be covered by broadband before the south pole...
1. Run a broadband connection to the South Pole.
2. ????
3. Profit!
"older satellites that have drifted from their geostationary orbits" But.. wont these polar caps/etc drift themselves? Won't that be a problem?
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
Finally, we'll start getting more .aq sites out there!!
I've yet to see a fibre optic cable of any kind that could survive any significant stretching. These guys are talking stretching on a glacial scale. There's just no way they will be able to overcome this.
Now, as an earlier post mentioned, running the cable to a coastal area or an island beyond the serious ice and relaying the signal via wireless is a lot more feasible. Of course the reliability will still be an issue as storms of antarctic proportion will impede even the best radio/microwave/laser setups.
In the end, I suspect that they will simply have to put up another satellite.
I guess the Antartica is going to get a hell lot hotter.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
It would seem Antartica provides one of the most hostile environments imaginable for wires, especially fragile fiber. Someone may come up with a very novel cabling system that might work, but despite all efforts chances are it will break down in the first year of use because of some onforseen engineering complications.
So... why not go wireless? They seem to only consider satellites as wireless options, but why no ground-based wireless?
Surely for this amount of money one could devices a wireless repeater system to be more stable. Apparently you only have to get the signal about 2000km to Concordia and you're good to go - so why not deploy a wireless repeater station every X kilometers?
There are no obstructions in the path except for snow/ice storms in the air - surely one can find a frequency that deals with this problem well and provides decent bandwidth ver a decent distance right? If you can go 20km at a time it's only 100 repeater stations along the way (or maybe you'd place 2-3 of them 1 km or so apart at each repeat point for redundancy)
11*43+456^2
Does the benefit of getting broadband to the South Pole outweigh the environmental impact of getting it there?
My other sig is extremely clever...
If we wait a few more years we can do an undersea cable.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
If I have a laptop at the SOUTH POLE, I can check my e-mail and read Slashdot. If I'm at home, 20,000 feet from Qwest's CO, I have to use dialup.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Now I can say with authority "If they can get it to the South Pole, you can get it here." next time I call AT&T BI.
"Derp de derp."
This seems like an exceptionally fragile way to get broadband, after all the ice sheets on which the cable is laid are constantly moving. The Amundsen station itself has moved over the years. Locating and repairing the cable when it inevitably snaps is going to be very expensive.
Unfortunately a microwave-based solution would be overwhelmed by the weather conditions there. And RF probably won't provide enough bandwidth. So they may not have many other options.
No, I don't want to explore the Recycle Bin.
they can email us some real photographs to use for the Linux logo!
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it
I Agree With This Post
This seems like the wrong solution. They really need some microwave stuff. The force of shifting ice is enough to snap any cable.
Alternatively, they could maybe drill a hole 4km down and lay the cable as is customary on the sea floor. At least it'd only break along the last 4km. We can drill 4km holes in ice, right? (send a hot metal thing down?)
Now that they have access to all the porn they want, they will have no reason to go out and meet people.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
If only we could send data relaying machines into outer space...
???
Iridium is back up and running, covers the entire planet (the satellites are in low polar orbits) and the U.S. Government has a bulk buy deal on Iridium satellite minutes. (DoD now owns part of the system, having bought in after the bankruptcy.)
http://www.sintercast.com
Hands up: who thinks wireless (microwave, 802.11, whatever) would be a much better idea here?
I bet Santa's jealous.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
A laptop, a wireless card and a Pringles can for a directional antenna ought to do it.
Because of companies like this one are bidding http://www.sintercast.com
medical staff at the station haved reported an increase in frostbitten "appendages" amoung the male researchers...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
So that you can take on the obligation yourself? I think not.
Instead of laying the cable in a straight line, you lay it in S-shapes. Big S-shapes. That way, there's LOTS of slack, say 500% slack, for the ice sheet movement.
Of course, you have to use a fairly flexible conduit -- copper piping should do nicely, as long as you can figure out how to make sure it doesn't kink too badly on compression. The S-shapes, again, would help, but a better material would be even better. Maybe copper line with a thick kevlar braid, along the lines of the braid used in a Chinese finger puzzle/trap.
The Canadian Armed Forces has to recalibrate their microwave dishes every eight years or so up north for CFS Alert on Elsmere Island, because the ice moves. That gets expensive in the long run (Snowcats, helicopters, men), and would be MUCH worse for Antarctica.
And finally, finding a break in the fiber wouldn't be too hard, ever heard of a time-delay reflectometer?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Linux founder and developer Linus Torvalds was found dead in his Finland home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to open source software. Truly an American icon.
off the ozone layer...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Some of the data transfer they might want will probably be very data and time sensitive. Wireless just won't cut it. Think if the Internet vs Internet2. Internet2 is need by certain apps just because of things like QOS, bandwidth, etc.
Oh and of course the power thing....but that has already been mentioned.
[Please type your sig here.]
I can see it now . . . Young scientist gets frosbite on his "Willy" while pleasuring himself to www.HotBabes.com.
nice!
Wow, they get broadband and I can't even get DSL to my apartment!
Even odder are some of the "No Service Possible" field checks that we get from Business Customers in Greensboro. Hmm I wonder what the build cost is on that. (I work for a large cable ISP...)
$6/ft*5,249,344ft == $31,496,062 USD. Well that's just to drop the cable. And that assumes that the cable we have will work with the cold.
So double that number and.. it's about 63 million dollars. That's a hefty field check.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Well that makes sense -- what with all this space elevator talk running around, we should just build it out of fiber-optics and tie the other end to the moon, thus killing two birds with one stone, as well at the entire earth when the cord pulls the moon out of its non-geo-stationary orbit and destroying the world.
Oh right -- so that I'm still on topic (yeah too late), they should attach wireless repeaters to the back of all the penguins, and use them to relay the signal to shore...
Or am I at the wrong pole again?
The correct answer to the problem is to use ice to carry am optical signal using what I call a 'laser' No messy cables or expensive satellites.
this post has merit since it is true. MOD PARENT UP!!!
1 = 1
Now mod me up, bitch.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Perhaps running the cabling in a conduit that is filled with warm oil or water would be good. You could have it in a pipe and have heaters every X distance. Either that or just a super insulated shielding. The laser itself produces a good bit of heat. I forget if the high powered lasers would heat it any to begin with.
I guess they need a bungie cord/fibre solution now though eh? Those glaciers moving can be a little dangerous to little olde fibre.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
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?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
It's a given fact that the planet goes through climate cycles (read: Ice Ages, which come and go)
Ice started receding LONG before humans started emitting greenhouse gases. Keep in mind that most of New York and a decent amount of New Jersey is... Glacial moraine???? Yup. A long, long time ago, the place where I am sitting was under ice. Probably before humans had even discovered fire.
How much of this recession is from greenhouse gases and how much is from normal climate cycles?
Greenhouse gases are definately having an effect. The question is, are they having as much effect as Greenpeace would like us to think?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
They have compact wind power devices from Windside, a Finnish company. Their equipment regularly runs at -60C, not sure how much colder it could take, though.
For the summer, supplemental solar would work, and batteries (somehow magically kept warm) can provide a good buffer.
Excellent notions here. I rather like the idea of Antarctica being used as a staging platform for the Internet in hostile environments.
I think I can speak for every one who doesn't care when I say who cares?
ender-iii
At least my local Starbucks is getting it...
Of course, they could use a Starbucks in the South Pole...
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
One interesting note: I think the ice shifts about 10 meters per year at the pole. Don't know what the rest of Antarctica is like, but it presents an interesting problem if they are planning on laying the cable on the ground...
If they are just going to lay the cable on top of the ice, which is more or less smooth, why can't they just put a huge spool of fiber in a slow flying airplane or a helicopter. They could fly close to the ground so it would be falling from 350000ft. Not much to crash into. The spool could have an electric motor to deploy the cable at the same speed the plane was traveling at to avoid creating tension in the cable. The process would be so quick you could lay several cables over different routes for redundancy.
Why should this be more difficult than laying fiber optic cables at the bottom of the ocean.
It's got to be better than what they currently have. I was actually thinking about "wintering over" down there. They get an email-grade connection to the satellites about 4 times a day. That's it.
Ok, stick me in a tin can at the most isolated spot on Earth for 6 months. Ok, no sun for that entire period. Ok, the harshest conditions on the planet outside, and not exactly the Hilton inside. But no internet connection? Dealbreaker.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Um, rather than providing broadband p0^H^Hinternet access, wouldn't it be easier just to make the place attractive to ambitious female scientists?
(Think of it as a rehearsal for a really long space mission without the alledged advantages of zero-G;)
Why bother with broadband at the South Pole when British Telecom can't even be arsed to enable ADSL in my local exchange because it's "not commerically viable to upgrade the exchange"? :(
The South Pole is the only permanently inhabited place on Earth that cannot see geosynchronous communication satellites, a fact that severely restricts communication with the base.
I take it that the North Pole is not permanently inhabited? I'm actually kind of surprised by this--it's much easier to get to the North Pole than the South, and there are other permanent settlements much closer at hand. (CFB Alert, which is responsible for watching for Russian ICBMs and bombers coming over the Pole, comes to mind.)
~Idarubicin
Well considering they currently have an intermitant satallite connection... wireless ping times would most likely be a lot better.
http://evoketv.com - TV Listings 2.0
Last month, Wired ran an article about the new construction at the South Pole. It makes no mention of this fiber.
As an Engineer for one of the Telephone Companies, I can tell you that fiber is stronger than you think. I had a pole get hit, knocking the cables the ground- a few 18 wheelers drove over the cables, partially crushing a copper cable. But, the two fiber cables were uninjured (part of their sheathing was shorn away, though).
Still, running fiber to the South Pole is idiotic- think of how long (and how costly) the FLAG project was!
It's a special fiber, I think it's called Goatse Fiber, because it can STR-E-E-E-E-EEETCH (insert Wile E. Coyote type sound effect here)!!!
And does it move? Or has progress killed it off, just like the barber poles here?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The only time sensitive data to/from Byrd Station are their Quake packets.
They may just have to live with a perpetual LAN party.
KFG
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK:
Open Letter to America from a Canadian
Never mind that earth-friendly technology already exists to once and for all end dependence on oil, coal and nuclear energy from huge, out-of-control utilities and corporations. You would rather pay through the nose for your insecure comforts, wouldn't you America, and make others pay with their blood.
by W.R. McDougall
Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."
Dear America:
And so it has come to this. Your once-great nation has fallen into madness, an affliction of mass denial that brings shivers up the spines of millions outside your borders. Yours is a sick nation. But most of you carry on as though nothing at all is the matter.
Dark, evil operations run rampant in the secret corners of your government institutions. A dubiously constituted government pursues war at will anywhere on earth, discussing nuclear options that become points for cheerful chatter over lunch. Your military and intelligence agencies employ terrorist tactics around the globe even as they insist that such tactics are necessary in the fight against terrorism.
You have become a nation of monsters, America. Hypocrites. Murderers. Fools.
Your constitution is a shambles thanks to "national security" measures resulting from what might well be U.S.-government-sanctioned terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., covert provocations designed to justify a malevolent, poisonous, oil-based military economy.
Never mind that earth-friendly technology already exists to once and for all end dependence on oil, coal and nuclear energy from huge, out-of-control utilities and corporations. You would rather pay through the nose for your insecure comforts, wouldn't you America, and make others pay with their blood.
At the same time, you stand by as the Israelis' secular Zionists--whom you support through the supply of arms and money--slaughter untold numbers of innocents in the West Bank, then blame the Palestinians for bringing the terror upon themselves. (True, there are abominable Arab suicide bombers in Israel's midst. But are they not driven to madness and desperation by your infernal support of international terrorist politics?)
As I write these words, you support a nation run by a convicted murderer by the name of Ariel Sharon who with impunity is carrying out war crimes as cruel and horrendous as those of other sadistic tyrants in history. And you say, in your utter cynicism, 'When will these Palestinians bring this war to an end?'
You recklessly wage combat on other fronts, too. At home, your War on Drugs is a disastrous 30-year folly--a gigantic con game designed to benefit lethal cartels, corrupt politicians and menacing intelligence agencies across the planet.....
With your government's support, crooked multinationals like Monsanto buy up the world's water supplies, and take possession of the world's vegetation through Frankenstein technology already known to cause illness.
Does the FDA care about any of this? It does not. It has long been on the bandwagon to foist genetically altered food on the Guinea Pigs of the country--including every man, woman and child on America's increasingly toxic soil.
You are a nation of suckers, America, to be bled dry of your hard-earned pay through outrageous bank schemes, Wall Street rip-offs and fake government budget grabs. Your Pentagon cannot account for trillions in lost dollars.
Does this bother you? Not in the least.
Your whole economy is controlled by what is for the most part ravenous, international private banking interests in the form of The Federal Reserve, which with your government's consent leads you down the garden path to certain financial ruin thanks to a national debt you will never be able to repay.
How is it that private banks are responsible for issuing your currency? How is it that they are allowed to charge ridiculous interest rates on what they issue? By decree, this was supposed to be the responsibility of your government, which could create its own currency without charging interest.
Do you realize your congress could dismiss these banks in an instant if it so wished? But don't ever count on it. More important matters are pressing. The upcoming election needs investment.
These very same money men are the ones who, through unmonitored and unrepresentative world committees, are driving countries like Argentina into hopeless debt and social upheaval. These greedy overlords are creating strife and suffering on a scale too tragic for words in nation after nation. Just look at Africa.
They've got their sights on America, now, too; disrupting economic stability through so-called free trade initiatives and provisions for special favors and the endless flow of cash to corporate monstrosities like Enron.
Amid all this, where are those who are supposed to represent your interests, America? For the most part, your congressional representatives are nothing but swine gathering at the corporate troughs. Your president is a white-collar thug, a hypocrite who through his actions celebrates war, repression and greed even as he gives lip service to peace, freedom and justice.
George W. Bush deceives you daily, the war monger hiding behind a phony patriotism. He is an Enron buddy boy, a spoiled child lying in his teeth about his past and current dirty deeds.
Does he care about you America? Hardly. This is altogether obvious to those outside your borders who are politically aware and awake to the world around them.
You were never concerned about the disgraceful practices of George's ruthless father, either, a Bin-Laden cohort and friend to criminals and killers in global drug, oil and terrorist enterprises. Iran. Vietnam. El Salvador. Chile. Guatemala. Iraq. And on and on. The never-ending bully-boy story of blood, guns, drugs and money.
Does any of this matter? No, it's simply time to eat.
Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."
Few among you are the least bit concerned that no real investigation of 911 has taken place, that no serious investigation of the anthrax attacks is moving forward, that no authentic investigation of Enron, or the murder of one of its top executives, is underway.
How many of you give the slightest damn about the totalitarian measures your government is taking to keep its secret meetings, grubby files and treasonous activities from your eyes?....
When did you stop caring, America? Was it after your own FBI and intelligence agencies plotted the murder of President John F. Kennedy? Or is this just the raving lunacy of the conspiracy nut? What does your gut tell you, America? Is something a little amiss here?
Forget about it. Have some Pepto-Bismol.
Today, in futility, your own government goes to court against itself for information you are entitled to by law. But this is hardly deemed vital news in the community. It is a fleeting reference in an electronic sea of meaningless banter. For proof, just look to all the spineless wimps who constitute your mainstream news media.
Today, you excoriate, ridicule and ostracize the brave and true among you. Your best investigative journalists are fired from their jobs and ignored. Congress's few courageous souls are laughed at and dismissed out of hand as crackpots. The most honest and conscientious political leader in the country, Ralph Nader, is a powerless, near-invisible curiosity easily side-lined by hired goons.
America, you are a goddamn shame.
What law matters now in your despicable state? What justice? What truth?
When will you wake up?
If you had your druthers, you would right now gather your courage, take to the streets and march on Washington D.C in the millions. But I know you will do no such thing. The vast majority of you are spiritually, emotionally and intellectually dead.
As I write these words, I can only imagine what additional horrors your shadow government might be planning in what will surely be an attempt to justify militarism and totalitarianism on a universal scale. A nuclear explosion in one of your cities, perhaps? A massive bio-chemical attack?
Or perhaps it will be some Arab terrorist who finally commits the terrible deed, his last thought before death being the promises you made to him before you killed his family.
Mr. McDougall originally wrote this letter to the Washington Post, but that paper has not yet printed it.
Check out Andrew Corporation's HELIAX line of coax cables. http://www.andrew.com/products/trans_line/default. aspx
a spx
This is semirigid coaxial cable in LARGE diameters. The outer conductor is solid copper, not braided.
The trick to flexibility is that the copper jacket has a helical corrugation - Much more flexibility, MUCH harder to kink. For what amounts to a variant of 1/2-inch copper pipe filled with PE foam, their FSJ4 superflexible coax is AMAZINGLY flexible. (Sucks compared to our friend RG58, but as I said, given its diameter and the fact that the outer shield is solid, it's impressive.)
In fact, I believe Andrew does make fiber optic cables based on the Heliax concept.
Yup - http://www.andrew.com/products/trans_line/amarra.
In addition they have fiberglass-epoxy composite jacket cable.
Disclaimer: I do work for Andrew, although not for the division in question.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Lovely solution, just one problem: They don't stay put.
Sure over the equator they can orbit at the same rate the planet rotates and so appear "fixed" but that only works over that narrow ecliptic. Instead to cover extreme N. & S. latitudes one needs sats on a much more inclined orbit and then they're out of sight much of the time, a dozen or so would be required to provide continuous coverage. That means a couple of expensive launches, a serious of expensive sats, and of course their own-going management (course-corrections, problem resolution, etc.)
Why not build a series of microwave repeaters or such, bring the cable to the shore then broadcast the rest of the way? A couple of reasons:
Yes fiber isn't the most robust material on its own. On the other hand it can be clad in all sorts of super-durable materials to protect it.
To protect from stretching the fiber might be coiled inside an outer cladding so it's 2x or 3x as long as required. Or it could be threaded through an outer cladding (think 'garden hose') so it can slide back and forth under slight tension between 1km "reservoir" loops.
Of course there's still the problem of powering the repeaters, but then that's why this contract is out there: To get folks interested in solving the problem.
Hmm, what would the Thunderbirds have done?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Alternatively, they could maybe drill a hole 4km down and lay the cable as is customary on the sea floor. At least it'd only break along the last 4km. We can drill 4km holes in ice, right? (send a hot metal thing down?)
You'd probably want a 4km deep trench. Otherwise you'd need some kind of mole to drag 1,600 km of cable behind it.
They are really quite different enviroments. The Antarctic is a *continent.* There are no 'iceflows.' There is also comparitively little drifting of free snow, Antarctica is the most arid desert on earth, precipitaion being measured in handfulls of inchs per *century.*
The glacial icepacks are *miles* deep in places and heating the cable would see it sinking down to the bottom, to be crushed and ripped apart by the *expansion and contraction* of the glacial mass. The ice does not 'move' anymore than it does on your lawn.
KFG
My cable provider is AT&T "Broadband," and I've been calling them for six years asking for a cable modem. Actually, it was not always AT&T. It used to be TCI Cable. I asked them for a cable modem about once every six months. The people in the office didn't even know what I was talking about. They worked for the freakin' cable company, and they didn't even know what a cable modem was. Then AT&T "Broadband" bought TCI. Now, they understand what I'm talking about, but they still won't deliver. I don't know what they're waiting for. It's not like I live out the middle of nowhere -- I live in a suburb of Chicago. There are plenty of people here who would pay for the service. I've noticed that several of my neighbors have new antennae on their houses to get a 1-Mbit wireless internet connection from a local ISP. We're too far from the CO for DSL, and I guess they got tired of waiting for the cable monopoly to gear up.
Anyway, my point is, don't bother calling the nice folks at AT&T "Broadband." It's a waste of your time. They don't care.
However me and the other penguins are probably going to get busted for swapping illegal Whale Song MP3's now....
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
If we can get one of the scientists there to become a Debian developer, upload a package or two and perhaps host a mirror we will have a Debian devel on every continent!
The theories posed here are interesting. One fact has not been stated:
Things you build on ice or tundra or whatever froze will sink below the ice surface. Re-adjustments because the ice is moving???? Not always.
Look at the houses / buildings built on arctic areas. They are on stilts. That is to they can:
1.) Insulate themselves from the ground. Not to make the inside warmer, but to keep the outside cooler. The heat from someting will cause the ground to melt.
2.) They can jack up the stilts of the building/house after it does sink.
A cable on ice will be, IMHO, thrashed. The ice moves, opens, and closes. Steel cables to protect it? No way. Not strong enough. And then put something heavy ( the copper pipe idea ) on the ice? The pipe will create heat on the ice just by being there. And then it will sink.
This idea needs more thought.
I was in Longyearbyen, Svalbard ( 4 hour flight north of Norway ) last week. I've seen it first hand. They were digging up a cable in the center of town last week because the cable was shifting. Putting this cable down was like building a road. Layers of big rocks, layers of small rocks, then paper, then the cable.
This was in an area of tundra, not ice. The ice would be worse. And 1500 km? I'd hate to be the guy in the service truck on that account.
Bill
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
Huh? If a geosynch satellite drifted out of alignment directly over the equator it would not appear to be stationary in the sky. How the heck do they keep their dish pointed at it?
Something's fishy here, and it ain't penguin breath.
Send in Playboy Playmates via chopper/seaplane/whatever. The guys in Antarctica deserve better than a flat JPEG, no matter how fast it can be downloaded.
I'm the stranger...posting to
I went to Dome C, now renamed Concordia, twice, in 1997 and 2000 to install some atmospheric physics experiments. I had to lay some cable there. Although it doesn't snow much (at most one mm / day), after 2 months the cables were buried and difficult to remove. We have to use expensive teflon coated cables so they won't break from the cold (-25~-50C in summer and down to -80C in winter, colder than South pole itself).
They want to lay the cable between Concordia and South pole for various reasons: Concordia is a joint French/Italian project that started in 1997 and should be operational for winterover in 2004. The french have lots of experience with ground raids to resupply station from the coast (Dumont d'Urville); while the Americans always fly C-130 to the Pole.
There has never been any land raid between Dome C and South pole, although a woman skied it alone in 1999 (pictures on my site as well). The flow of ice is non-existent at Dome C, for the simple reason that the several 'domes' are local ice summits from which the ice flows. They will certainly run into problems of stretching cables nearer to the pole though.
But from Dome C to where ? Right now the communications are very limited: one email connection a day, expensive NOAA phone calls/fax, Irridium when they are not bankrupt... It would be impossible to lay another cable between DC and the coast for the simple reason that the ice accelerates it's flow and it gets full of crevasses... Maybe a dedicated antenna can reach a geostationary satellite, but that's not the way it works right now.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
That's Kansas that's filled with literalists [Fred Phelps] fundAmentalists [Topeka Capitol-Journal] who believe the earth is 6000 years old [CNN].
Iowa has corn.
Instead of going to the expense of laying a few thousand miles of fibre, why not just adapt RFC 1149 to the local conditions? In addition to a huge cost-saving, it's a Linux friendly solution!
... I don't know how it would be laid, or how think the ice is at the pole - but it seems to be a solution.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Overall, I'd say putting a satellite constellation (say, 4 satellites so one's always visible) in non-equatorial orbit would be one plan, and a wire to a spot where at least 2 geostationary satellites are visible would be the other. Wireless links won't cut it here. Even if you could put a couple of the towers on specially picked mountains, you'd still have too much possibility of failure.
On the other hand, and in an off the wall comment, if I were doing this, I'd include in the contract a requirement for an elliptical 1m wide, 1.25m high space running the length of the inside of the conduit. Its going to be a huge conduit already, might as well make it multi-purpose, right? Imagine being able to just hit the antarctic coast and taking a tube-shuttle from the coast to the station. Wheee!!!
Oh sure, send in the network guys to get eaten by Shoggoths.
Ok, if we spend a fortune heating the fibre as it goes in, we have the issue of ice sheet movement. People here have made various suggestions about laying loops, however it is that pulling around of a cold fibre that is going to lead to the core breaking.
So, all you have to do is to heat the thing so that it never gets much below zero. This is quite easy over a hundred metres or two. Over 1600Km, um I don't know.
That is funny
We used to get data squirts from the South Pole station (environmental data). The onboard controllers running some RTOS (forget what) had to be programmed to transmit on their yagi antennas at predetermined times to take advantage of said orbits. At our downlink, we had to reposition the dish to point where the satellite was supposed to be. Thank god for everyone using UTC times instead of local timezones.
One of the rocket scientist guys explained that when the satellites lost the ability to station keep (or were purposefully pushed out of a geostationary orbit), you'd get a figure-8 orbit, hopefully North/South in direction. Some of the old GOES weather satellites did some major ass travelin'
Submarine fiber cables exist in some pretty harsh environments, but I'd be curious to the effects of freeze/thaw near the more temperate zones. Anyway, satellite is out, else how would the South Poler's ever get good at Quake or Counterstrike????
Antarctica is primarily solid land with ice-shelves hanging off portions.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
denser than said layer.
Oh crap!
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Fibre optics work by transmitting light thru a clear substance: glass.
Why not transmit light thru the ice directly?
Yeah, yeah, i know that the nature of ice would cause massive distortion and interference, and that the light probably wouldn't go very far.
I'm just trying to suggest a wild concept, which might help other people think of more unique solutions to this problem.
Who knows, solving this problem might end up with solutions to solve many other problems related to broadband connectivity or long distance spans.
If the ice is 4 km thick, maybe some high power laser could strobe the signal from underground.
Don't flame the idea, use it to spur your imagination!
www.Beyond7.com Insane modern art water sculpture.
Just think about how long it would take the cable technician guy to get to your igloo if your internet goes down! I live in the same state as the cable company, and it takes at least a month for the guys to come to my house and fix the cable!
Why do they need a cable at all? They should just shine the optic signals straight through the ice. :-)
There's one stretch of fibre I definately don't want the maintenance contract for! Come on guys, ICE MOVES!
I live on THIS continent and I CANT get broadband. Why are they getting it before me?
The economy is back. I can finally get a job somewhere.
The south pole gets broadband before *I* do in Ohio????
Global Crossing?
-twb
The South Pole research station has a bunch or radio telescopes. Like this
Of course, the prevalent wireless standard is 802.11, and 802.11 networking (also being based on radio frequencies) isn't allowed at the station because it messes up the telescopes.
I understand they have problems with people setting up rogue access points anyway. They track 'em down with this.
--Bradley
"Hey, scientist guys...I'll do it for $100 and a penguin for each of my kids!"
That's an interesting idea -- perhaps the telecom guys will give the scientists a break for a share a share in the wealth of penguins available on the polar cap.
-----
"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
It's "always" here.
But then again, there's no way to stop it if it rolls from
the sea plane.
Decent broadband should hit down under, not that far away from the south pole.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Just them in at the start of the transportation window, and bring them out before the window closes.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Building towers on the continental ice is very simple thing - you take a heating element from
electric teapot, put it on ice, power it on.
Few minutes later you have a hole in the ice,
filled by water
You extract heating element, and quickly insert
a steel rod instead. Few minutes later
water would freeze and hold your steel rod much stronger than any concrete.
And you may be reasonably sure that this ice wouldn't melt few centures more.
Now we have something to do besides freeze our asses off up here.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
And I still can't get broadband at my home in Florida.. I mean is broadband on the southpole really necessary? What are they browsing joecartoon.com ?