Internet at its peak

“Today we made the world’s highest video call from Mount Everest base camp.”

The statement by Pasi Koistinen, head of the telecom firm Ncell, could well become one of the landmark quotes in Internet history.

On October 30, Koistinen’s firm, a joint venture between Nepali investors and Swedish telecom giant TeliaSonea, began a high speed internet service to enable climbers at the top of Mount Everest to make video calls and surf the Internet on their mobile phones. The firm has installed the base at 5,200 metres above the sea level near Gorakshep village.

Before this, people relied on expensive satellite voice-only phone connection put up by China Mobile in 2007 on the Chinese side.