Mount Everest gets 3G mobile network

There was a time when the summit of Mount Everest was about as isolated as you could get, but now climbers who reach the "roof of the world" will be able to pause to check their email or perhaps surf the internet. A Nepalese telecommunications company has installed a 3G mobile phone network around the mountain and says its coverage will even reach the summit. Ncell says the installation of base stations along the route to the mountain has, for the first time, brought a mobile data service to local people, tourists and climbers. When Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing reached Everest's summit in 1953, expedition leaders had to send runners to carry messages to the nearest telegraph office. Satellite, then mobile voice phones have since helped news travel faster, but now a station near Everest base camp in the Khumbu valley has heralded a communications revolution in the Himalayan country, Ncell's parent company, the Swedish-based TeliaSonera , says. Lars Nyberg, the company's president and chief executive, said the network was a milestone for mobile communcations and would bring "faster, more affordable telecommunication services to the people living in the Khumbu valley, trekkers, and climbers alike". Less than one-third of Nepal's population has access to a mobile, but the company said its planned investment of more than $100m (£63m) should increase that to 90% by the end of next year.