If you’re one of the few hundred people that attempt to climb Mt. Everest each year: don’t sweat it, you’ll still be able to text your peeps from the top.
Nepal Telecoms, a telecoms company which has a lock on some 60% of the Nepalese cell phone market, has announced that they’ll be taking signal all the way to the top by way of satellite antennas.
Climbers have always been able to phone home with satellite phone, but those things aren’t exactly compact, nor are they cheap. This will allow climbers to user the GSM/CDMA handsets they’ve already got. Certain select areas of the mountain have had coverage for a few years now (don’t go try and be the first to make a cell phone call from the summit – it was done in 2007) – but considering that the face of Everest is a relatively easy place to die, the more coverage the better.
[MyRepublica via The Raw Feed]