Skynet and Interwebs

I receive lots of questions about internet access at the South Pole. We receive intermittent internet access via three satellites: GOES, Skynet, and TDRSS. These satellites are all in geosynchronous inclined orbits. We can only receive and transmit data when they are in our line of sight. The satellite passes are displayed on one of our south pole intranet webpages. A sample from 7 PM to 4 AM is below.

After 4 AM, there is no internet until about 11 AM, when Skynet comes on. Because the satellites are in geosynchronous orbits, the start/end times of the passes move forward by four minutes each day.

The fastest of the satellites we use is TDRSS (SPTR), which can be used to ssh, VPN, etc. Skynet and Goes are much slower, and are only really good for checking email (using gmail's basic html option) and some news sites.

Because I use ssh/VPN for some research, I shifted to a night schedule to coincide with the SPTR passes. As a plus, I get to see even less people around.

Each of the satellites has it's own dome, containing a dish that receives/transmits data (two shown above, from back when there was still twilight). They are about a 10-15 minute walk from the station. We have two satellite engineers wintering over that ensure the satellites are kept running and continue to deliver the internet to the station. More important than access to Facebook, is the transmission of the science data. SPT transmits ~50 GB of data each day, and IceCube transmits even more. As for personal internet usage, it is closely monitored by the hive-minds in Denver, and certain websites or transmission types are completely blocked.

When the satellites are offline, phone calls can be made using our Iridium satellite uplink, and email messages < 50 KB can be received. This is limited to work email/phone.

Other Notes:

• Forget youtube, netflix, or any other form of video streaming
• BitTorrent is (understandably) completely blocked, and downloading anything takes a long time

Next Week in Pole: A midwinter guide to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).