BEIJING (AFP) — A Mount Everest mobile phone base has had a successful test run, meaning climbers will stay in range of calls and text messages on top of the world's highest peak, Chinese media reported Wednesday.
The station at 6,500 metres (21,450 feet) was also built to help communications for the bearers of the Olympic torch, which Beijing 2008 Games organisers plan to carry to Everest's summit, the state-run China Daily said.
The station's key equipment was immediately packed away after the test for the harsh Tibetan winter and will be reassembled in time for the torch visit expected in May next year, Xinhua news agency reported.
The station, run by China Mobile, the country's largest mobile phone service provider, is the world's highest cell phone base, the reports said.
It was "incredibly difficult" to build as oxygen levels at the site were only 38 percent of those at sea level, the carrier's general manager Wang Jianzhou was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
An official with Tibet Mobile, China Mobile's Tibetan subsidiary, said that after the Olympics the station's operational periods would be based on mountaineering activity and scientific surveys.
China Mobile had previously built two other stations at lower elevations on the mountain, but the new one will ensure mobile phone service along the entire route to the summit, Xinhua said.
Previously, mountaineers trying to reach the summit had to rely on satellite phones.
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