The government of Australia has built a cellular network in the most inhospitable clime in its jurisdiction. I’m not talking about the Australian Outback, but rather in its Antarctic territorial claims far to the south.

The Australian Depart of the Environment’s Antarctic Division has fielded a GSM network supplied by Range Networks at its research station on Macquarie Island, about halfway between the Australia and the frozen continent. It has plans to expand that network to three more research stations on the Antarctic mainland.

This isn’t the first time cellular connectivity has been available in Antarctica. Claro(s amx) and Movistar(s tef) have set up towers on the continent to connect research bases, but those systems have essentially been far-remote extensions of their networks back in Argentina, depending on satellite backhaul links to connect calls.

What Range and Antarctic Division have done is built a self-contained, independent communications network that…