Merry Christmas from Mount Everest (include 2 small jpgs)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

To:  "Dave Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
From: Gordon Cook <cook () cookreport com>
Subject: Merry Christmas from Mount Everest
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Dave please share this with IP

I received this card received from Namche Bazzar (20 kilometers as
the crow flies from the summit of Everest) about 2 hours ago.  Sent
in the middle of the night Nepal time from the Sherpa capital (3440
meters elevation) by v-sat to Kathmandu and from there to the global
internet.  Sent by Tsering Gyaltsen Sherpa, the grandson of the only
surviving Sherpa who was on Hillary's 1953 first ascent. In June 2001
Maoist insurgents  cut  Namche's only telecom link to Kathmandu .
Since then Tsering has put a small telecom company on the
mountainside and via a v-sat  rejoined the Solu Khumbu  to the rest
of the world in October 2002.  Dave Hughes, I and 2 other americans
are rendering technical assistance to Tsering via the Internet.
Tsering will have a 802.11b link from Everest base camp (approx 5600
meters) to a vsat on Kalapathar at the foot of Pumori and from there
to the global Internet. It will be in place in time for the beginning
of the climbing season in March.  At the request of Dave Hughes Cisco
has agreed to make a grant-in-kind of the radios necessary to link a
small LAN at base camp to the V-sat at Kalapathar.  Aside from grant
of the radios, the base camp installation will be a jointly funded
effort by a Kathmandu ISP, the Shepa community and the Sagarmatha
PCC.  Tsering is a real inspiration.  With efforts like this, there
is,  I  believe, hope for the future.  Via a direct Internet link to
a pair of radios identical to those that Cisco is providing,  Dave
Hughes began today to train Tsering and two assistants  who will set
them up on the Khumbu glacier at 17,500 feet in about

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