Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Communication at Everest Base Camp

In this picture you can see a porter carrying one of the NBC crates down the valley as well as some of Asian Trekking's satellite dishes. While satellite Internet is great and very convenient, it costs on the order of $10-11 per hour and is about 128-256k speeds.
EBC Satellite Communication
Then there is also Ncell service at Gorak Shep, but sometimes it's down and it doesn't reach base camp, maybe about a mile from BC at the "3G Rock". It's a hike but 1 GB is about $21 and 5 GB about $32 for a month. The speeds are decent, but it's just plain HSPA. In the picture below you can see the blue roofs of Gorak Shep above my computer just below where the snow starts. The tower is on top of one of the roofs about 20 feet above the roof.  There is another cell phone service at EBC, NTC, and I believe they even had better reception than Ncell this year.
Blogging from 3G Rock with Gorak Shep above my computer in blue.
I had my Delorme InReach SE as well, but that's so unique and capable off the grid, it deserves it's own blog post. So in 2014 those were basically the options. Ncell or NTC for 3G not quite at base camp or satellite at base camp for a lot of money.

1 comment:

  1. The speeds are decent, but it's just plain HSPA. In the picture below you can see the blue roofs of Gorak Shep above my computer just below where the snow starts. The tower is on top of one of the roofs about 20 feet above the roof. mypbx

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.