How High is Your AP?

DeAshcroft writes "The New York Times has a piece [give up your data] on the wiring of Everest. Tsering Gyaltsen, the grandson of one of Sir Edmund Hillary's orignal summit-conquering Sherpas is bringing the net to the mountain (presumably bringing the mountain to the net was even more difficult). He's attracted a great set of 'technologists' to make this happen, and, best of all, it means the locals get access (including a school of about 250 students), not just the rich geeks who come to town to climb the thing."

Brainfart

[nukey56]

Was I the only one who read this as "on the wiring of Everquest"?

Re:Brainfart

[CoolGopher]

Nope, you weren't alone. Couldn't for my life make any sense of the paragraph until about the fourth time I read it, when I finally realized it didn't actually say "Everquest". And I don't even play EQ! Bah!

Always a good thing

[brainboyz]

It's always good to introduce western culture to the locals moreso than they already recieve from the climbers.

Surely this is a joke?

[ites]

When you can reach any point on earth through satellite connections, and most of the inhabited world through terrestrial wireless communications.
Are we going to see Nepal Telco guys in orange hats dig a ditch all the way up to the summit?
Oops, better go and read the article...

Re:Surely this is a joke?

[dagyo]

The proposed access point is at base camp, not the summit. Still an impressive feat, but not quite as ridiculous and unrealistic as attempting to provide access at the summit.

Re:Surely this is a joke?

[ashitaka]

The summit would be easier.

MUCH closer to the comsats.

Peak latency

[JonathanF]

Does having Internet access on Everest bring new meaning to the term "lag spike?" :)

Re:Peak latency

[hudmond]

When do we get internet access on the moon? I mean, those poor astronauts... What do they do without IRC and Slashdot?

Article Repost?

[Ab0rtRetryFail]

Could somone post the complete article (as a reply) for those Slashdotters (such as myself) who don't feel they need to complete a byzantine registration process to read a story??

Re:Article Repost?

[egreB]

Well, that won't be nescessary. [majcher.com]

I wonder how many non-autorative entries they've got in their members database! (-8

Re:Obcene

[macaddict]

The people who live there don't even have access to clean water. This is obcene

Yes, because we all know that people in third world countries are too ignorant to make their own decisions. It's a good thing we have paternalists to point out the error of their ways. Should we also prevent them from having internet access so we can preserve their culture for them, too?

I guess I'm just being naive when I trust that Mr. Gyaltsen can make his own decisions on how he can best help his neighbors.

And while he's making his own decisions. . .

[kfg]

he can have lunch at TGI Friday's in Kathmandu, while wearing his khakis he bought at the local Gap outlet.

Good thing he's in Nepal, not Tibet. In Lhasa they've only got a Wimpy's.

Ignorant savages.

KFG

Article text for posterity.

[mikecheng]

Because It's There: Putting Everest Online
By NANCY GOHRING

IF the 25-below-zero temperature, howling wind and grim effects of altitude sickness do not make most of those trying to scale Mount Everest feel a world away from home, the near-complete lack of communications on and around Everest surely does.

This year, just in time for the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary's first ascent of Everest, climbers on the mountain will have the chance to connect with the world below by e-mail. That is because Tsering Gyaltsen, the grandson of the only surviving Sherpa to have accompanied Hillary on that famed climb, is planning to build the world's highest Internet cafe at base camp.

It is fitting that the added comfort comes courtesy of a Sherpa, one of the clan of Nepalese who take charge of getting most everything up the mountain for the usually wealthy adventurers seeking the thrill of topping the world's highest peak.

But in contrast to many climber services, this one does not stand to benefit foreign-run outfitters primarily. Although it is an obvious perk for the climbers, the residents of a nearby town may get Internet access because of it, and the mountain may get a bit cleaner.

The technical challenge is significant. Wireless radios will be positioned on moving glaciers, and gear must be insulated against temperatures far colder than they were designed to withstand. And at the helm of the project is Mr. Gyaltsen, who is not wealthy and has no formal technical training.

But tenacious he is. From halfway around the world, Mr. Gyaltsen has attracted an all-star cast of technologists in the United States dedicated to furthering his goal.

It started when Gordon Cook, author and publisher of a monthly newsletter, The Cook Report on Internet (www.cookreport.com), met Mr. Gyaltsen by chance during a visit to Nepal in November. Mr. Cook was so intrigued by Mr. Gyaltsen's success at independently restoring phone service to his town, Namche Bazar - cut off for more than a year after Maoists tore down a government-owned telecommunications tower in 2001 - that he started asking friends to lend their expertise to his work. "I put my full network at Tsering's disposal," Mr. Cook said.

At the time, Mr. Gyaltsen had set up a satellite Internet link and cybercafe in Namche Bazar, a six-day hike below the Everest base camp, and was trying to figure out how to make it more available to his neighbors. Then one night over a beer, he and a friend who works for the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a nonprofit environmental group that is responsible for disposing of the mounds of garbage on Everest, hatched the idea for an Internet cafe at base camp.

The proceeds would help bring in money for the committee, which Mr. Gyaltsen said that as a Sherpa he felt it "my duty to help."

Mr. Cook brought in Dave Hughes, a leading wireless-technology thinker who has studied the performance of wireless equipment in extreme weather in Alaska for the National Science Foundation. One of the first calls Mr. Hughes placed was to his friend Jim Forster, who holds the title of distinguished engineer at the networking giant Cisco Systems.

Mr. Forster eagerly donated three Wi-Fi radios on behalf of his company. Such radios enable the creation of wireless networks that can relay data within a couple of hundred feet or as far as several miles as the crow flies, much the way that local-area networks, or LAN's, work in offices.

"What I like about this project is that it demonstrates that the technology developed for a LAN in a building can be applicable beyond that," Mr. Forster said. "This may be as far outside the building as you can get."

From his base in Colorado Springs, Mr. Hughes, 74, is using a Web-based conferencing system as a long-distance tool to teach Mr. Gyaltsen and his colleagues how to set up the base-camp network. Mr. Gyaltsen is working with technicians on loan from two Internet service providers, Square Networks and Worldlink, based in Nepal's capital, Katmandu. Another friend of Mr. Cook's, Mike Trest, an independent consultant and satellite expert, is helping to teach the Nepalese about satellites.

The network will consist of a small satellite dish, planted about 1,500 feet above base camp, that can provide two-way communications. Because the dish must operate from firm ground, it cannot be used directly at base camp, which is on a moving glacier. The $10,000 satellite dish, which Mr. Gyaltsen purchased with a bank loan and funds from Square Networks, will connect to the cybercafe at base camp over the Wi-Fi radios. The dish will beam data to a satellite in orbit and to an Internet service provider in Israel.

It sounds as if it would be challenging for Mr. Hughes to teach relative novices how to set up such a complicated network from nearly 8,000 miles away. But Mr. Hughes - who was teaching a college class online in 1982, a decade before most people had heard of the Internet - says that the 13-hour time difference is not the biggest problem.

"The distance is easy," Mr. Hughes said. "It's the culture that's hard."

Once, Mr. Gyaltsen disappeared from e-mail and the online network for two days. Mr. Cook later learned that after the deaths of some villagers, nearby Buddhist monks had instructed people in the town to attend a special ceremony at the monastery - nearly a full day's walk from home.

Another time, Mr. Gyaltsen was incommunicado for a couple of days because some drunken climbers in Namche Bazar had tripped over the wires connecting his Internet cafe to his satellite dish there.

Cisco and Mr. Gyaltsen are working out the seemingly endless bureaucratic requirements for importing the radios to Nepal. Once they have arrived, Mr. Gyaltsen will transport them by plane to Lukla, a town at roughly 9,800 feet, then up by yak train to Namche Bazar (more than 11,000 feet) and on to the base camp (nearly 18,000 feet) before the final leg of the trip.

Mr. Gyaltsen and the pollution committee, which will technically own the radios, are still deciding what to charge users. They are considering a flat fee of $2,000 to $5,000 per expedition, which can number 5 to 20 people. That price might sound steep, but Mr. Gyaltsen says it paled in comparison with the cost of the expedition itself, typically $65,000 a person.

The satellite link and Internet service will cost the operators less than $1,000 a month for the climbing season. Any profits will go to the pollution committee. While initial expectations for profits are modest, organizers believe it is safe to say that the Sherpas will not come up short in the end.

"There's a handful of us prepared to make sure that Tsering doesn't lose anything," Mr. Trest said.

Mr. Gyaltsen's goal is to begin the network in March, in time for the climbing season. He expects 1,000 people to pass through base camp between mid-March and the start of the monsoon in early June, for a typical stay of four weeks before ascending the summit.

While those involved in the project are intrigued by the technical challenge, most seem far more interested in the cultural ramifications.

Mr. Hughes and Mr. Cook are particularly intrigued by how the radios can be used during the off season. Mr. Gyaltsen hopes to move them to Namche Bazar, where they will be hooked up to his existing satellite dish. The radios will provide Internet reception over a nearby hill to a school with about 250 students. With such a link in place, Mr. Hughes and a friend who once taught English in Nepal hope to establish a distance-learning program.

The possibility of better educating his neighbors, improving life in town and encouraging educated people to stay has inspired Mr. Gyaltsen.

"My friends who are well educated, they are doctors or engineers, they don't want to come back here," he said. "But these are the people we need here." If the town has more to offer in terms of Internet connectivity and development, educated people may want to return, he reasons.

Mr. Cook and Mr. Forster also see the effort as a potential model for poor communities around the world that are seeking to set up communications networks without relying on huge, often government-run telecommunications corporations.

"It's such a classic example of how one person brought telecom into an area where the phone company wouldn't," Mr. Cook said.

Re:Article text for posterity.

[Ab0rtRetryFail]

Thanks, Mike. :)

Mount Everest Not Slashdotted Yet

[billstewart]

Gordon Cook has sent a couple of notes to NANOG on this, and apparently there's been some delay getting this stuff working, but it should be ready in a couple of months. (So you won't slashdot it quite yet.) That's about the right timing - typical Everest expeditions hit summit in early May, or else Novemberish. Winter's not good, and summer gets monsoon conditions, which are snow and wind up there. March is about the right time to be hauling stuff up the mountain, ordering supplies, and generally coordinating things. Hopefully they can avoid some of the problems with supplies and overcrowding that have caused some of the previous disasters, and let the Sherpas not only make enough money to finance its ongoing operations, but also keep continuing communications into their towns.

Real Geeks WarChalk the Satellites directly

[cyber_rigger]

Real Geeks don't need no stinkin ground based access point.

Mt Everest is almost in space anyway.
Just bring along some Pringles and save the can.
Aim it at the low orbit satellites.
(You may need some binoculars to make out the warchalk symbols)

Re:Real Geeks WarChalk the Satellites directly

[rastachops]

The funny thing is, I know someone who did this about a year ago. He had some dishes and some really modified equipment. The problem is that its so easy to trace so he didnt use it much. But there was *alot* of bandwidth from it.

Bullet Points

[kwenda]

Tsering Gyaltsen, the grandson of the only surviving Sherpa to have accompanied Hillary on [his] famed climb, is planning to build the world's highest Internet cafe at base camp... Wireless radios will be positioned on moving glaciers, and gear must be insulated against temperatures far colder than they were designed to withstand. Mr. Gyaltsen had set up a satellite Internet link and cybercafe in Namche Bazar, a six-day hike below the Everest base camp, and was trying to figure out how to make it more available to his neighbors. Then one night over a beer, he and a friend who works for the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a nonprofit environmental group that is responsible for disposing of the mounds of garbage on Everest, hatched the idea for an Internet cafe at base camp. Jim Forster [of Cisco] eagerly donated three Wi-Fi radios on behalf of his company. The network will consist of a small satellite dish, planted about 1,500 feet above base camp, that can provide two-way communications. Because the dish must operate from firm ground, it cannot be used directly at base camp, which is on a moving glacier. The $10,000 satellite dish, which Mr. Gyaltsen purchased with a bank loan and funds from Square Networks, will connect to the cybercafe at base camp over the Wi-Fi radios. The dish will beam data to a satellite in orbit and to an Internet service provider in Israel. Mr. Gyaltsen was incommunicado for a couple of days because some drunken climbers in Namche Bazar had tripped over the wires connecting his Internet cafe to his satellite dish there. Mr. Gyaltsen and the pollution committee, which will technically own the radios, are still deciding what to charge users. They are considering a flat fee of $2,000 to $5,000 per expedition, which can number 5 to 20 people. That price might sound steep, but Mr. Gyaltsen says it paled in comparison with the cost of the expedition itself, typically $65,000 a person. The satellite link and Internet service will cost the operators less than $1,000 a month for the climbing season. Any profits will go to the pollution committee.

Err, is this what people climb Everest for?

[melonman]

You have survived the cold, the wind, the yetis, you are exhausted but exhilarated as you pull yourself over the final ledge and collapse onto the summit, and then you notice an urgent beeping in your pocket. In your rush to extract your PDA with frost-bitten fingers, you overbalance and fall backwards. As you plummet towards certain death, you just have time to read that you can get herbal viagra at an unbeatable price...

Re:Err, is this what people climb Everest for?

[egreB]

You, my friend, just made my day (-8

Imagine how cool it would be

[Omkar]

for a grade school teacher to be in contact with his/her class while climbing Everest? The educational possibilities for everyone are huge. I aslo think, however, that more effort should have been put into improving meatspace infrastructure in Nepal, or getting rid of those pesky rebels.

Unlikely for a grade school teacher........

[hughk]

Unless the Grade School teacher is heavily sponsored and given a leave of absence during term-time.

It takes some time to go up Everest and it costs serious money. Organised expeditions are charging $20000 or so for participants. The license alone to climb Everest costs about $50000 or more per expedition. If you add Sherpas, equipment and so on, you can see where the costs go.

On the other hand, connecting the people up is generally a good thing. It helps democracy by keeping people informed. Informed people are less likely to be potential rebel sympathisers.

Re:Imagine how cool it would be

[NeoSkandranon]

You must have missed that "usually rich" line that was used to describe the people who go up the mountain. That kinda rules out most gradeschool teachers. Agree though, it would be cool, if it were possible

Good.

[neksys]

Here's an example of exploiting the rich in a manner that benefits everybody. The wireless internet access will cost the soon-to-be adventurers $2000-$5000 per expedition - which, according to the numbers given, is only a small addition to the $65,000 typically already paid per person for the expedition. Surely people who can afford the ascent can afford the added cost of WiFi access. The beauty part is that the profits go to the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a nonprofit environmental group. So in effect, the poor are exploiting the rich in their need for all the creature comforts - and doing so in a way that benefits everybody.

Re:Good.

[phliar]

One more detail that's important: Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mt. Everest. Why does the "Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee" need to exist? Because all those goddamn mountaineers have trashed the mountain. There's a hundred years of discarded tents, oxygen bottles, and just plain trash there. It's fitting that when the CEO pays for his little Everest adventure, he puts in a couple of thousand to clean up the mess.

This seems to be an idea that's good wherever you look at it from.

stress-testing

[smarthippy]

Dave Hughes, a leading wireless-technology thinker who has studied the performance of wireless equipment in extreme weather... That's probably a legitimate job, but it sounds supiciously like a dilbert cartoon to me.

Wally: "My proposed work plan for the year is to stress-test our product under severe network conditions. I will accomplish this by downloading large image files from the busiest servers on the net ... I was this close to making it my job to download naughty pictures."

Oh, well what else is there to do in Alaska for the NSF? research?

This is my last post

[sielwolf]

Trapped on summit... night is coming... Tell my wife I... First Post!

Peachy....

[wowbagger]

Great - so now we can get morons suffering from the 3psi actual pressure (extreme oxygen deprivation) scribbling "FP from Everest!"

I prefer this sort of mountain climbing [dimensional.com].

When the install.....

[gr8_phk]

Just tell me when they install an elevator.

Joy at base camp

[dazdaz]

So this means clans of Counterstrike teams fragging at base camp, yeah baby!

Priorities?

[Hoi Polloi]

I guess the priorities in that part of Nepal are:

1. Internet access
2. Medical Care
3. Sewage treatment
4. Environmental Degredation
5. Education, Etc...

You may live in squalor but at least you'll be able to trade mp3's and download porn!

"Here is your T1 line courtesy of your friends in the US!"

"Thanks, but did you bring any cooking oil?"

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

How High is my AP...

[0x12d3]

...So high they should be in the sky would birds.

www.sherpa_porn.com

[Homeßrew]

www.SherpaPorn.com ... man ... that is gross.