Making a GSM Phone Call from the Summit of Mt Everest

A British mountaineer is preparing to attempt a world record, for the highest ever mobile phone call. Rod Baber is completing his acclimatization at the base camp of Mount Everest and plans to try to make a phone call from the very summit of the mountain. The assent will start next Tuesday, and the record breaking phone call should be tried around the following Wednesday.

China Mobile recently completed an upgrade of the wireless network from Lhasa to Mount Everest to increase coverage in the area for a visit by the Olympic Torch.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics torch relay will pass from Lhasa to the top of Mount Everest, being carried to the summit by the Chinese Army. China Mobile added 17 base stations during the network upgrade, and it is this upgrade which should enable the record attempt to be carried out.

Mr Baber, and the rest of the assent team he is with reached base camp at the foot of Everest a few weeks ago to acclimatize to the high altitude.

"It took us three days before we could walk more than 50 steps without running out of breath," he told BBC News from base camp in the Himalayas.

The record attempt should be possible as China Mobile has installed a base station nearly which has the range to reach the summit. Weather could however pose problems as the base station is almost at the limit of the reliable range for the GSM network.

As of the end of the 2006 climbing season, there have been 3,050 ascents to the summit, by 2,062 individuals, and 203 people died while summitting. The conditions on the mountain are so difficult that most of the corpses have been left where they fell; some of them are easily visible from the standard climbing routes."

Posted to the site on 11th May 2007