Ukrainian polar explorers have finally got an unlimited Internet traffic. The 2.4 m diameter General Dynamics antenna was installed and launched at Akademik Vernadsky station today, on April 9, 2021.
The Ukrainian IT company MacPaw decided to support our station and donate an antenna and the whole complex of IT equipment for a new quality of communication with a total cost of about 30 thousand dollars. The equipment has come a long way, complicated, like all logistics, by quarantine and other restrictions, but finally got to the most remote point of the planet where the Ukrainians work.
The equipment also increased the speed of Internet connection and increased the speed of data transmission to the network by 8 times: from 500 kb/s to 4 Mb/s.
“Exploration of the polar regions, ocean and space are markers that distinguish the developed countries of the world from the third world countries. I am very glad that it is the progressive young Ukrainian IT business that understands why Ukraine needs to explore Antarctica, and is ready to support our science with its own money. It is this kind of synergy between science and the private sector that lifts countries out of poverty to technological breakthroughs and economic prosperity”, – said the director of the National Antarctic Scientific Center of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Evgen Dykyi.
Previously, the total traffic per month was 30 GB. And 3 years ago, polar explorers had no normal connection with the world at all: only once a week it was possible to send and receive text messages.
Now the expedition members will have an unlimited communication with the mainland and, above all, with their relatives. And of course, they will shoot more cool videos about Antarctica and their work for you.
We express our gratitude to our MacPaw partners for such a wonderful and useful gift! Antarctica is getting closer!
