|
|
|
ExplorersWeb Everest tech week Part III - Higher speed Internet - Everest style
17:28 p.m. EDT Feb 19, 2003
This spring, Tsering Gyalzen Sherpa and his American friends are planning on creating a wireless Internet café at Everest base camp. An Israeli ISP will provide Internet via satellite connection with a VSAT (Very Small Aperature Terminal) dish that will be positioned about a mile away from base camp at a point approximately 1,500 feet higher. More than likely it will be placed upon the flanks of Kala Patar, a small peak rising above the nearest hut in Gorak Shep.
Hot spot Everest BC
From here, a WiFi system will get the Internet signal to base camp wirelessly. This WiFi is based upon the 802.11b protocol; the same technology used by the Everest Internet Experiment in 1999 that is now just emerging in homes, schools, and offices.
Wireless networks are so hot that places like Starbucks offer it to their coffee bean aficionados. Have a mocha chino and surf the web from your own laptop. There are even parks in NY where invisible wireless feeds are pushed to people, allowing them to hang out and work on their computers or PDA’s in "open air" offices.
With the help of a wireless card and some software, it is possible to get a "free ride" on countless wireless connections around the city. Those "hot spots" are even marked up with a chalk by wireless enthusiasts, as an underground guide for free Internet surfing. Some networks are scrambled and some are not, instead they push banners to your laptop as you hook up.
Just outside ExplorersWeb’s wireless office there is actually an ambulance parked every evening, 6 pm sharp, with the driver plugging away at AOL instant messenger.
And what do you know; next hot spot is Everest BC!
Hey, don't touch that dish!
A Cisco Aironet 350 wireless bridge coupled with an antenna will transmit the Internet signal to base camp where another antenna will receive the connection. From there Gyalzen hopes to have 8 laptop computers linked up to the connection. It is unknown how much power the VSAT dish will draw, but Cisco has the Aironet at pulling 24 volts DC. While information concerning the amps is not provided, it would be feasible to power the unit with solar panels. There is no information as to the power solution as of yet for the satellite connection terminal.
The VSAT is not setup in base camp directly: -"It needs to be fixed in place in order to keep a proper connection with the satellite above. Base camp itself is on a glacier that is continuously moving".
The WiFi 802.11b setup between the VSAT dish and base camp also needs to be aimed properly, and a misaligned antenna would severe the Internet connection. The question still remains however why not put the VSAT in base camp and realign when necessary.
The answer will probably come this spring when the system is launched. Cisco expects the speed of the connection to be anywhere between 64 to 128 kbps.
The project will initially cost around $40,000 for all the equipment – the satellite dish alone is reported to cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. As there are no reports available yet on whom the satellite provider is, it is hard to estimate true cost, but the organizers plan on $1000 per month to keep things up and running.
Although the pricing plan to use the café has not been set in stone, the organizers are planning on charging anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 per expedition. Gyalzen is doing this in cooperation with the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which is where all the proceeds of the project will go.
Changing lives in Khumbu
Although the idea of an Everest web cafe is fun, the question arise why climbers loaded with their own sat com gear should have the benefits of the emerging amazing wireless technology. This said with regards to the fact that the rest of the valley lacks phone lines and ground stations altogether. The people still run between villages with messages and the schools are as low tech as it gets.
Wireless internet to the villages would change the lives around Nepal, India, Bhutan and tons of other places in the world.
Well, there is a plan: The aim is to have the system up and running by the spring climbing season and to also offer it during the fall climbing season. When not in base camp, Gyalzen is planning on taking the WiFi setup, hook it up to another existing satellite Internet setup in Namche Bazaar, and provide Internet to a nearby school.
Hopefully the Everest web cafe will create media, and the media in turn create investors, eventually allowing the technology to spread to all the rural areas. Everest and the starlit fame around it might then change the lives not only of all the worlds dreamers, but also its very own people.
The worlds highest Quake tournaments!
Satellite Internet technology is fairly new and there are a few service providers in the US. Direct TV has a service called Direcwav that uses VSATs for broadband Internet access. The system is available anywhere in the US and costs $100 dollars to be installed and then $100 dollars a month for access. As this network is larger and assumes that the people using it will have electrical outlets, the costs are obviously less than that of Gyalzen’s undertaking. With further development, the prices are likely to drop also globally.
On of the few disadvantages of Satellite Internet is the lag. As the signal has to go all the way to space and then back, certain time-sensitive action/reaction applications like online games and Netphone applications that allow for voice calls don’t work too well. So those of you gamers might have to wait a while before the world’s highest Quake tournament takes place!
Should the Everest cyber-café work, it will be a good showcase of how internet can even reach some of the most remote places of the earth, providing information and communication to the global community, anytime, at anyplace.
|
