Mount Everest is now the world’s highest hotspot after a Swedish telecommunications company announced the launch of 3G service in Nepal. The chief executive of Ncell, a subsidiary of TeliaSonera, said the highest video call ever had been made from the Mount Everest base camp Friday. Since Nepal has the beginnings of a 3G network, climbers can go online at the summit of the world’s highest peak and one of the most backward countries on Earth will get a taste of modern technology.
Via the whole world, it is the world’ highest 3G base station
The 3G at Mount Everest will benefit climbers a ton. They had to use satellite phones to talk to everyone when up there before. Ncell has set up coverage with a series of eight 3G base stations. The highest is in the village of Gorakshep, near the Mount Everest base camp at 17,000 feet. Everest 3G will mostly be used for emergency communications and real time weather reports. The locals all have to pay to do anything with calling or the internet to use satellite phones. Now, Ncell has made a way for locals to surf the web, send e-mails and make calls more easily.
Communications on Everest
3,000 people have made the trip to Mt. Everest and climbed it. This has all been since 1953 when Sir Edmund Hilary first climbed the mountain. The nearest telegraph office would get the messages from climbers back then. That’s because runners had to be used to send messages. A Nepal climber, Veikka Gustafsson, spoke with TeliaSonera and said that it weighed more than 220 pounds to carry a satellite phone and equipment with him to the Himalayas. China Mobile is a company that has given partial cell phone coverage at Mount Everest. That has been the only coverage since 2007 though.
Nepal and 3G
Access to telecommunication services is not common in Nepal. In fact, it is accessed by only one 3rd of the people living there. The jagged mountain makes it really difficult to build cellular towers. Also, building land-based networks is almost impossible. Commenting about the Everest 3G network, Gusafsson said:
“It’s hard for people in the Western world to even imagine what it means for people living in distant villages in valleys separated by high mountains when they now make their first phone call to relatives or are able to contact a doctor over the phone.”
Ncell has about 3.7 million subscribers in Nepal, a number that will rise now with 3G service. TeliaSonera plans to invest a hundred million in Nepal to establish mobile coverage for 90 percent of the population by the end of 2011.
Further reading
BBC News
bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11651509
Daily Tech
dailytech.com/Worlds Highest AboveWater Peak Everest Gets Internet Access/article20026.htm
PC Magazine
pcmag.com/article2/,2817,2371750,00.asp
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