Wow, That's A Long Way To Go Just To Talk To Yourself

In other news, I recently faxed an invoice to a mile-deep trench in the Pacific; a camel just sent me a "lolcat" pic from his Blackberry wireless device (tm); Apple's new i-Juniper trees come with built-in BlueTooth; the petri dish on my desk has completed two low-income-housing blocs playfully entitled "Park Place" and "Boardwalk;" etc.

From today's New York Times, "Conquering the Peak Test of Technology," by NOAM COHEN:

AFTER weeks of climbing, Rod Baber recently reached the summit of Mount Everest, ... took off his oxygen mask and called his voice mailbox, leaving an exuberant, if weary, message.

“Hi, this is Rod, making the world’s highest phone call. It’s the 21st of May, I have no idea what time it is.” He then looked at his watch. “It’s 5:37. It’s about minus 30. It’s cold. It’s fantastic. The Himalayas are everywhere.”

It was either the first mobile phone call made from the top of Mount Everest, as Mr. Baber and Motorola, which set up his voice mail, proclaim, or the umpteenth, as climbing experts who track the comings and goings there say.

It has taken a couple of generations of technological improvements, but Mount Everest, one of the most remote places on earth, is now officially overexposed.

Tom Sjogren who with his wife, Tina, founded mounteverest.net, a news site that reports on ascents of the mountain, estimated that at least 70 teams on Mount Everest “did more or less daily Internet updates with images, text, positions and videos from the mountain.”

The effort to digitally connect Everest has been aided by a series of technological breakthroughs, including a faster, cheaper satellite modem for sending files destined for the Internet, and the introduction this spring of a light, relatively inexpensive Thuraya satellite phone that can take pictures and video and upload them. (The Thuraya, with a long antenna, is already a favorite of insurgents around the world, too.)