YourHub.com \\ Old Colorado City \\ Stories \\ Travel \\ General Travel

HIGHEST CYBERCAFE IN THE WORLD

e-mail to a friend | print this | link to this

Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 10/2/2007

THE HIGHEST CYBERCAFE IN THE WORLD

PART I - THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLOBE

I got an Internet telephone call this Tuesday morning (Oct. 2) from friend Tsering Sherpa who was calling from high on the slopes of Mount Everest in Nepal, telling me of his latest successful implementation of wireless. He is on the other side of the world.

Tsering is a Sherpa whose grandfather Gyaltsen climbed in support of Sir Edmund Hillary on the first successful summiting of 29,035 feet (8850 meters) Mount Everest, in 1953. Since that first successful climb, thousands of climbers and just plain sight seers have trekked three days up the Solo Khumba, rested and acclimated in the Sherpa village of Namche, at 15,000 feet, before pressing on. Historically they are all out of 'communications' with the exception of a small handful of costly satellite phones in the hands of specialists, until Tsering had a series of bright ideas.

First, after a visit to the US where he saw the Internet and its potential, he went back to his home in Namche, and invested in an Internet Satellite system, which he installed in Namche in about 2002. That permitted trekkers to 'call home' (email, web) for a $1 a minute charge from four dinky used desktop PCs directly connected to the satellite base station. With the seasonal boom and bust of trekkers in the village the service was limited. But it worked.

Then came the 2003 50th Anniversary of the first climb by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. There would be many more climbers trying for the summit. And all the climbing expeditions would have to, after passing through Namche, get to the Everest Base Camp, at 17,600 feet up, and be there for as much as a month, as base support for the climbers trying for the summit. There were at least 200 in different climbing parties planning to put up their tents at the Base Camp and maintain the support system for those masochists who wanted to climb to the top, and/or die trying.

So Tsering's second bright idea was to carry, on the backs of a dozen or so Yaks, a satellite base, dish antenna, lots of solar panels, storage batteries and all the other stuff needed all the way to Base Camp, and set up the world's highest Cybercafe to provide a satellite based Internet communications service to all, for a per-minute fee.

TECH ON TOP OF THE WORLD

There was one large problem. Which is where I came in.

If they placed the satellite base unit where the base camp tents would be. with its antenna aimed at the tiny satellite 22,000 miles low in the southern sky, it would be sitting on the Khumba Glacier.

Which moves and everything on it, four feet a day!

It didn't take a Sherpa rocket scientist to figure out it would be difficult to keep the antenna aligned. And there wouldn't be any on-call Discovery repair man around to reaim the system constantly.

Besides, the base camp is as close as possible to the ice fall where the technical climbing begins, which is snug up close to the huge peaks. With the satellite bird low in the southern sky, the beam from the base unit would have to be aimed through the v-shaped cracks in the skyline, which would , periodically be filled with storm clouds. Which would severely attenuate the weak signal to the satellite and could knock it out completely. An unreliable Internet connection trying to be used by many different parties would be nearly useless.

Now I knew nothing of this until I got an e-mail right here in Old Colorado City from one tg_sherpa@hotmail.com He, Tsering Sherpa, was looking for one of the world's experts in telecom - namely me! My reputation apparently had gotten to the other side of the world after I connected up Mongolians and Alaskans and others to the internet, wirelessly.

I read the message, which was, essentially, 'Help!'

So I pulled out my world maps, then Nepalese maps, then went online to get the topo maps and climbing maps of Everest, the Solo Khumba valley, ice fall, glacier and where the base camp would be. I got a fast education on what it takes to climb Everest and where and how the support parties work. I learned it took 300 sturdy Sherpas, whose stamina and ability to carry big loads at high altitude were legendary, where westerners can barely carry their own bodies upward, to support that one British climbing party back in 1953 who finally got Hillary and a Sherpa, Tenzing, to the top.

I looked, calculated, thought, and answered by e-mail "The solution is simple. Put the satellite base unit 4-to-5 kilometers southwest, away from the base camp, across the valley, and put it up the lower slopes of 24,494 foot Kala Patthar mountain, which is on hard ground, and link to the base camp via a set of solar powered Wi-Fi class radios with directional antennas pointing back at the other radio at the satellite base unit location."

Simple.

Back came the bleat: "But we don't have any such radios!. What do you call them? 'Wi-Fi?'"

Yeah, no corner Radio Shack store at 18,000 feet and reachable only after a seven-day slow, hard climb from the nearest trailhead.

So I called up one of the distinguished engineers I knew in Cisco Corporation in California, which was just getting into the wireless business, and said "Jim, I can get Cisco Corporation more World Wide Publicity than your whole Public Relations Department if you just do what I ask!"

Jim Forster knew my reputation very well, said "You probably can. What do you want us to do?"

I said: "Donate three - one a spare - Cisco class Model 350 Wi-Fi radios with 13.5db directional antennas with connectors to pairs of 12 volt batteries (they take 24 volts) to the Sherpas of Nepal so that they can set up the world's highest Cybercafe, to connect up the climbers on the 50th Anniversary of Hillary's Climb. And give you the credit! That will go world wide! But you have to hurry, and get that system through tough Nepalese customs within three weeks, to turn them over to the Sherpas who will trek them to base camp, and then they can follow my technical instructions by e-mail once the satellite base is in place and operating and linked to the net near the base camp.'"

Long story short. They, Cisco saluted and got it done. The Sherpas got the satellite system up across the valley from the base camp (damned near at 19,000 feet!) got their Internet connection, hooked a computer to it and emailed me. I gave running instructions to the Sherpas by e-mail at every stage - first to Kathmandu, then Namche, then out on the cold slopes across the valley from the base camp at 18,000 feet via the satellite link. The Sherpas also saluted and followed my detailed instructions how to set up the Wi-Fis, aim the antennas, configure the systems.

Before it was done I, and a stream of base camp climbing party members were sending e-mail with digital photo attachments from a Cybercare tent in the base camp, and were chatting voice-over IP (VOIP) to telephone systems around the world. With a 13-hour time difference from the US.

The world's highest Cybercafe!

And true to my word, on January 23rd, 2003, a big feature story appeared in the New York Times. Just copy and paste this URL into your browser

http://linkingeverest.com/html/NewYorkTimes_1-23-03.htm

and Cisco got great press all over the world.!

You can follow, by captioned web pictures that whole tale of a world telecommunications first.

http://gallery.linkingeverest.com/main.php?g2_itemId=6929

NO REST FOR THE WEARY

But that was NOT the end of the story. Next thing, they drug me right around to the other side of the world into yet another, wilder, scheme.

Go to the story - Trekking Everest on 75 year Old Legs. It's Part II

[Report this as objectionable content.]

SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above story

Talk Back : submit comments to the story

*Note: you need to log-in to add a comment or rating.

Thank you! Your comment has been updated.

Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 10/3/2007 @ 3:29:22 PM

(Not Rated)

Tsering is charging $10,000 for that full month's Videoconferenceing service. He is turning out to be a real businessman!

[Report as objectionable]

Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 10/3/2007 @ 3:27:38 PM

(Not Rated)

That means, for the FIRST TIME EVER, there is VIDEOCONFERENCING FROM THE BASE CAMP (18,000 feet up there) AT EVEREST!

[Report as objectionable]

Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 10/3/2007 @ 3:26:47 PM

(Not Rated)

Dear Dave, It was of great pleasure talking to you yesterday over the phone line. I just got back from Everest base camp setting up a VSAT for the first Thai Everest expedition. They will be using the VSAT to send video footage back to Thailand combined with video broadcasting. I have given them a uplink of 1 mbps and down link of 128kbps. The second week of november instead of bringing the VSAT all the way back to Namche I will be storing it at Gorekshep as I will again head back to Basecamp in February to setup for spring 2008 expeditions. I believe there are more than 20 expeditions planned on Everest during the spring of 2008. Unlike 2003 I will not be setting up a Cybercafe. But I will be distributing links to all the expeditions. I have been talking to few expeditions and they seemed interested as our link will be much cheaper than using Immersat bgan . The season this year seem pretty promising in spite of the coming election. Keepin touch TSering

[Report as objectionable]

Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 10/3/2007 @ 3:26:35 PM

(Not Rated)

Here is the promised email from Tsering from yesterday's VOIP phone call from Namche. Big new Technical step up for Tsering AND Mount Everest.

[Report as objectionable]

Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

CONTRIBUTOR INFO

Dave Hughes

Colorado Springs , CO

Dave Hughes has posted 77 stories and 87 comments since joining on 3/1/2007. Dave Hughes 's average story rating is 4.9.

view profile » view other postings from Dave Hughes »