[atlas]probe locations

  On 12/5/10 8:28 PM, Florian Obser wrote:
> Hi,
> so, I had a look at the probe locations at https://atlas.ripe.net/ looks
> like there is a probe on every continent... except Antarctica! How cool
> would that be!  Maybe there is someone on this list who knows someone who
> knows someone... ;)
The south pole (Scott-Amundsen base) would be the place to go! It'd be real
cool to have an Atlas probe there, given the challenges in connectivity.

>From 
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9049898/The_Big_Chill_Ch_Ch_Chatting_with_the_IT_manager_at_the_South_Pole?taxonomyId=10&pageNumber=2 


"*What technical challenges do you face?*

Our biggest challenge is bandwidth. We only have it only 12 hours a day at
anywhere from T-1 (1.54 Mbit/sec) to 3 Mbit/sec speeds. We also have a
transponder that we can use to send 60 Mbit/sec unidirectional from the
pole to the real world. We use that to upload scientific data. Our record
was 94Gbytes out in one day.

We have three different satellites we use to provide our Internet. All of
those are pretty ancient. We have a weather satellite, an old maritime
communications satellite and an old NASA 
<http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=search&searchTerms=NASA> 
satellite, the first one that
was launched back in 1981. The others were launched in 1976 or 1977.

Basically we're scavenging whatever we can find and we can only see each
satellite for 3 to 4 hours a day.

[...]

In the past year we put up a really cool system where we're using the
Iridium satellite network. We have 12 modems mulitiplexed together and
have a total of 28.8K connectivity 24 x 7."

That was December 2007. Don't think much has changed, at this moment
the webcam at http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm
reports " Status: waiting for visibility" ... ;)


> While discussing this with a friend we both noticed that the coolness
> could only be topped by a probe on ISS. Looking at the registration page
> this seems easy enough, "Method of delivery*: Other, please specify:
> Soyus or Ariane 5"
> "Hosting Location" on the other hand will probably be a pain in the ass.
>

South pole would already be tricky. Which longitude to use for the probe?
Anything between 180W and 180E is valid!  And by the looks of it, it would
fall off of the google map :-)

-- Rene

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