Mount Everest now has a permanent 3G connection to the summit | Hacker News Reader

Mount Everest now has a permanent 3G connection to the summit

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18 pointsukdm24 comments

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4 Square should sponsor a competition to see who can be the first to check in from the summit.

I wish phone carriers would focus on getting permanent 3G to places less remote and where people live and use phones.

Travellers to Mount Everest are well off and in a spending mood.

I suspect the roaming charges at the peak of Mt. Everest are far more profitable than in a city.

And it's a PR hit. Would you have commented on HN about GSM reception finally available in random-underserved town?

No, but i'd still prefer the later.

Why is everyone so concerned about this? This is a a no-brainer because:

  - people pay a lot of money to go there, and \
  - people die there

Safety is at a premium there. Even the best climbers don't always make it. Watch this TED video and tell me this is a superfluous use of technology: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_kamler_medical_miracle_on_evere...

This is a superfluous use of technology. The people that go there already take plenty of precautions. As a climber, I would not rely on a communication channel installed by someone else as anything more than a hail mary.

The notion that people are concerning themselves with costs as small as a satphone when already paying upwards of 120k is absurd.

The cost of a satphone is weight.

compared to what? a 3g enabled device? everything is weight.

The climbers are only a small part of an expedition. I would imagine this will benefit the locals, who works with the expeditions but can't afford much access to a satellite phone. The project is part of a larger one to provide mobile coverage to 90% of the population. The company also gets experience in deploying stand-alone cell sites in "harsh environments". The actual use on the mountain itself may just turn out as a public relations stunt and some extra bandwidth for media, but that's not the whole story.

It's upsetting news that the most popular virgin place on earth is now a little less virgin than before. Step by step, losing its natural value.

everest has had a relatively elaborate basecamp for years.

Well there goes all the dead spots.

Pun intended. Interesting that they would put something like that up there. Most people climbing Mount Everest probably could afford a satellite phone and don't need 3G. Guess it is a luxury for those risking their lives.

Might as well put in a flight of stairs

C'mon, we're talking modern technology here, they didn't introduce a telegram system.

So clearly we're looking for an elevator, not a flight of stairs.

Well, there's already a ladder at one portion of it.

Now I have no more excuses for why I am not trying to climb Mount Everest.

I hear Mt. Everest now has a serious litter problem because of all the people - and it's only been popular since the late 70's.

Imagine how much litter is going to be on the moon someday once people can go there for "just" a million dollars.

The surface area of the Moon is much larger than Everest though. IIRC it is similar to the land area of Earth. (Remember that the Moon, although smaller than the Earth, has no oceans.)

To nitpick, the surface area of the Moon is roughly the same as the area of Africa plus the area of the contiguous US. Much less than the total land area of Earth. It's even less than the area of Asia.

I think you're thinking of Mars. Its surface area is nearly that of Earth's land area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

Definitely going to incur some roaming charges, but seeing the looks on your friends' faces when you video call them from the top would be absolutely worth it.

Now if we can just put a Starbucks and a gondola up there...

and yet I drop calls in the middle of Chicago. Amazing.

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