Can You Hear Me Now? Mount Everest Gets 4G Wireless From Huawei and China Mobile

It appears that Huawei, along with China Mobile, have taken away my last excuse for not climbing the world's highest peak, Mount Everest. Has my gym membership, equipment and flight been covered? Nope. But the phone coverage has been!

As a slightly beefy tech geek Canadian that happens to hate the cold, I kid about even considering the adventure. To those who do tackle it head-on, though, there will be LTE wireless waiting for you at the top. Just imagine the possibilities... streaming Netflix, ordering a pizza, and of course, having a go at some chat roulette. 

Obviously, I'm making light of a great accomplishment here, because Mount Everest is no joke. The fact of the matter is, ascending the mountain is difficult, and many die each year attempting it. If that doesn't clue you in to it dangers, perhaps the fact that the entire mountain is littered with dead bodies will. After a certain point, rescue operations are just not reasonable, so when you climb Everest, you in effect realize the serious risk you're taking.

That's all grim, but it highlights just how impressive this accomplishment is. Unfortunately, Huawei has supplied no photos of the accomplishment, nor has given us any statistics as to the performance up there. It's mentioned in the press release that in 2007, this joint venture produced wireless coverage at the Everest Base Camp (itself with an altitude of 16,000 ft), which is still going strong to this day.

Given the difficulty in rescue operations, it's hard to imagine that Everest's LTE addition will aide anything there, but what it could allow is for climbers to have a better chance of being able to contact someone in the event of an emergency, either for advice or support. Whatever its uses, though, no other mobile carrier can claim this sort of feat.