Telecommunications in Antarctica is provided by the organization that have established research stations on the continent.

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

is not formally designated by the

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

(ITU) in any of the world zones. Communication infrastructure is provided through service providers in each country that administers each base.

Telephone communication

United States bases

* Telephones – main lines in use: 0 (note: information for US bases only, 2001) * Telephones – mobile cellular: Argentine bases have GSM networks provided by Argentinean carriers Claro and Movistar;

Iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density of ...

system in use * Telephone system ** ''general assessment:'' local systems at some research stations ** ''domestic:'' N/A ** ''international:'' via satellite from some research stations

Australian and New Zealand stations

Five locations (Casey Station (AU), Davis Station (AU), Macquarie Island Station (AU), Mawson Station (AU) and Scott Base (NZ)) all have telephone connections that enable direct dialling to and from the outside world. Connections to the Australian stations is via the country calling code +672. Argentinian and Chilean bases within their claims, which have families living at them, are also connected by direct dial connections. Connection to

Scott Base Scott Base is a New Zealand Antarctica, Antarctic research station at Pram Point on Ross Island near Mount Erebus in New Zealand's Ross Dependency territorial claim. It was named in honour of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Royal Navy, RN, leader ...

and the nearby United States base

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...

is via the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

country calling code Country calling codes or country dial-in codes are telephone number prefixes for reaching telephone subscribers in the networks of the member countries or regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The codes are defined by the ...

+64 (see

Telecommunications in New Zealand Telecommunications in New Zealand are fairly typical for an industrialised country. Fixed-line broadband and telephone services are largely provided through copper-based networks, although fibre-based services are increasingly common. Spark New ...

Television

;Television broadcast stations :* American Forces Antarctic Network at

, US; cable system with six channels (note: information for US bases only, 2002) ;Television channels :* several hundred at McMurdo Station, US (note: information for US bases only, 2001)

Internet

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Argentine bases have on polar plateau which was installed in 2009. Country code (Top level domain):

.aq .aq is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Antarctica (itself not a country). It is reserved for organizations that work in Antarctica or promote the Antarctic and Southern Ocean regions. It is administered by Peter Mott of A ...

Data access to the

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is the United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the southernmost point under the jurisdiction (not sovereignty) of the United States. The station is located on the ...

is provided by access via

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

TDRS A tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) is a type of communications satellite that forms part of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) used by NASA and other United States government agencies for communications to and fro ...

-F1,

GOES Goes () is a city and municipality in the southwestern Netherlands on Zuid-Beveland, in the province of Zeeland. The city of Goes has approximately 27,000 residents. History Goes was founded in the 10th century on the edge of a creek: de Korte ...

Iridium satellite constellation The Iridium satellite constellation provides L band voice and data information Pass (spaceflight), coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium Communications owns and operates the Sa ...

Marisat Marisat satellites were the first maritime telecommunications satellites and were designed to provide dependable telecommunications for commercial shipping and the U.S. Navy from stable geosynchronous orbital locations over the three major ocean reg ...

F-2 provided data communications until it was retired in 2008. For the 2007-2008 season, the TDRS relay (named South Pole TDRSS Relay or SPTR) was upgraded to support a data return rate of 50 Mbit/s, which comprises over 90% of the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

's data capability, which is used primarily for scientific data return. The Australian Stations each have a satellite data connection, currently contracted to Speedcast. This provides each station with a 9Mbps symmetric connection. Data and telephony access to

is provided via C-Band by

Spark NZ Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digital division) ICT services to businesses. It was know ...

& Horizons 3E. Regarding Argentine bases in general,

Marambio Base ("Antarctica's Entrance Door") , motto = , anthem = , pushpin_map = Antarctica , pushpin_map_alt = Location within Antarctica , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Antarctica , ...

has wireless internet and two mobile phone servers.

Orbcomm ''ORBCOMM'' is an American company that offers industrial Internet of things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communications hardware, software and services designed to track, monitor, and control fixed and mobile assets in markets including t ...

satellites which

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland *Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits *Mountain pass, a lower place in a mountai ...

over Antarctica can relay short messages to and from transceiver units to

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

or XML over

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

. The

McMurdo station McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...

has permanent access to a shared 17Mbps connection; testing of the

Starlink Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX, providing satellite Internet access coverage to 45 countries. It also aims for global mobile phone service after 2023. SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. As ...

service begun in September 2022, with a second terminal providing connectivity for the

Allan Hills The Allan Hills are a group of hills at the end of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in Oates Land and Victoria Land regions of Antarctica. They are mainly ice free and about long, lying just north-west of the Coombs Hills near th ...

field camp brought in November 2022.

Radio

Official broadcasts

* Argentina Bases: Radio Nacional Arcangel San Gabriel, Esperanza Base, on 15476 kHz with 2 kW and 97.6 MHz. QSL cards verified. * Chile Bases: Radio Soberania, Villa las Estrellas on 90.5 MHz with 100 W. * United States Bases: American Forces Antarctic Network AFAN McMurdo, on 93.9 MHz with 30 W and 104.5 MHz with 50 W. * Scott Base - New Zealand: Scott97FM, On 97.0 MHz with 25 W

Amateur radio

Several bases used their transceivers also to provide

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

worldwide communications on HF or

amateur radio satellite An amateur radio satellite is an artificial satellite built and used by amateur radio operators. It forms part of the Amateur-satellite service. These satellites use amateur radio frequency allocations to facilitate communication between amate ...

s with specific club callsigns, also useful on utility and emergency communications.

List of research facilities and country codes

Notes

References

External links

United States Antarctic Program - Information Technology and Communications
{{Telephone numbers