A fiber-optic cable strung across the Drake Passage could pull Antarctica's research bases off satellite links and hard-drive shipments and onto the global network after Chile's finalized feasibility study concluded last week that the crossing is technically viable. Salience Consulting and Pioneer Consulting ran the study for telecom regulator Subtel, and development bank CAF financed it, with partial support from the China-initiated MCDF Finance Facility. It recommends an instrumented cable carrying a dedicated fiber pair to each Antarctic landing, naming two Chinese firms among the six suppliers Subtel canvassed. Antarctic research data still leaves the continent physically, on hard drives ferried out by ship and plane "in suitcases full of hard drives," said Juan Pablo, a team leader in the pre-feasibility study.
The study weighs a minimum configuration serving three facility groups around King George Island and the northern Antarctic Peninsula against an optimal configuration with nine Antarctic landing points, an option that Reports 2 and 3 recommend. The nine-landing version would connect research bases run by Chile, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and the United Kingdom, all fed from landings at Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams in southern Chile and routed across the Drake Passage. Reporting from The Maritime Executive puts the minimum build near $370 million and the optimal build at roughly $620 million.
