Nepal Telecom (NT) has finally launches the Mobile telephony service at the top of the Mount Everest – the highest peak (8848 m) in the world. It was in November 2009, Cell phone service atop Mount Everest soon – was published after NT made it on news. Now mountaineers can talk to the world using GSM mobile service from Telecom.Nation’s largest telecom company NT is operating on GSM service now at the entrance of Mount Everest (Sagarmatha). Telecom has operated installing a tower at Gorak Shep located at an altitude of 5,160 meters from last Tuesday (May 4, 2010). This GSM tower works via Satellite system. Currently, the service is on test trial and soon to be launched for public use.
This will make Gorak Shep the mobile tower situated at the highest altitude (5,160 m) in the world.
Chief of NT’s Satellite division Mr Anoop Ranjan Bhatterai had earlier said that they were planning to commence the service by mid-June this year, hope it will provide an alternative to those currently relying on satellite phone services such as the one provided by Thuraya. And now they are before their deadline.
NT has installed satellite antennas in around seven locations in the Mt Everest region, including Lukla and Namche Bazar, located at 2,800 meters and 3,440 meters above sea level, respectively.
Since there is no electricity supply in Gorak Shep, this mobile tower will be powered using solar energy. The tower has the capacity of 500 GSM subscribers and is expected to help mountaineering expedition a lot easier. Mountaineers (who will be conquering Mount Everest) can take mobile phones to the top of the world ie Mount Everest to ease their expedition and during rescue operations.
“All these antennas can smoothly handle around 3,000 calls at once,” Bhattarai said. “But we will increase the number of terminals depending on the traffic in the region.” NT has a cell phone subscriber base of around 49,90,190 users as of April 5, 2010.
