Better communications link with South Pole to benefit research
Research data from the South Pole should reach Europe faster following a decision to lay a fibre optic cable across Antarctica to facilitate speedy and more reliable Internet access. The work of European and other researchers in the South Pole is currently restricted by their reliance on satellite communications. These can prove unreliable as the South Pole cannot see geosynchronous communication satellites. Following the laying of the 1670 kilometre (1040 miles) cable, however, South Pole-based scientists will be able to transmit their data more quickly and researchers in other parts of the world will be able to control Antarctic experiments remotely. The American National Science Foundation has made the request for industry to bid to build the trans-Antarctic fibre optic link. The difficult and ambitious project will probably not be finished until 2009. Estimated to cost around $250 million, the fibre optic cable would run from the South Pole to Concordia, a permanently-manned French station in a region called Dome C. If successfully completed, it will make communications a lot easier for researchers in the Antarctica. Present satellite communication with the base involves using ageing satellites that have drifted away from their geostationary orbits into ones that can, for a part of the day at least, be just visible from the South Pole base.