I would love to learn more about your day to day in Antarctica! Did Starlink really change everything for connectivity there? Do most people stay inside?
Starlink was certainly a game changer for life around here. McMurdo is essentially a small town so many different jobs and routines to make everything go. Some stay inside all the time, some have to work outside a lot.
https://brr.fyi/ is a really good blog from a person nearing the end of a year long deployment who writes much more eloquently than I ever could if you want to read more.
Antarctica: A Year on Ice is an enjoyable film documentary from ~10 years ago.
A Big Dead Place by Nicholas Johnson is also worth a read from the early 2000s.
Here at McMurdo we've had 24/7 satellite internet for at least as long as I've been coming down (~10 years). Think roughly a ~30mbps connection shared with ~1000 people with business and science bandwidth prioritized over personal browsing. So starlink has been a game changer for sure.
At South Pole, I believe they don't yet have access to starlink. They also don't have 24 hour coverage for the few internet satellites they do get.
I don't work in IT so don't have direct access to more specific information, and obviously I can't speak for the many other stations scattered throughout the continent.
Woah! So there was just a single "downlink" for the entire station? Are there multiple starlink antennas now? I guess the upside is that you don't have issues with overloaded satellites in your area :')
