Communications technology

March 7, 2000 Byron Smith and communications technology expert Eric Verheylewegen test the expedition's equipment on Mt. Holling in Alberta. See Daily Video from the team.

Here's what they're packing, and how it works:

• A teleconferencing system, or video telephone
• A transceiver or satellite telephone

The video phone is similar to the type popping up on boardroom tables of large companies who do business between major cities. It's about the size of a large desk-phone with a 5.5 inch display screen, a built-in camera and a connector for an external video camera. It can transmit and receive sound and pictures over a phone line.

The satellite phone, INMARSAT M4, will give the team the connection they need to send the sound and pictures back home, in real time.

Broadcasts have been transmitted from Mt. Everest before, but not directly from the summit. In the past, it's been possible to carry cameras up to the summit and even satellite phones but the bandwidth was not large enough for a direct transfer of pictures and sound.

In 1988, a Japanese expedition was able to broadcast pictures and sound from the summit but instead of doing it directly, they used microwave radio transmissions to relay the signal to a microwave radio receiver at Basecamp. The 4.5 m antenna at Basecamp then sent the signal to the KU-band satellite system and back to Nippon Television in Japan.

On the Everest 2000 expedition, the signal, carrying sound and pictures, will be sent directly from the summit via an INMARSAT M4 (a mobile ISDN line to the International Maritime Satellite) from Network Innovations.

ISDN stands for Integrated Services Data Network, a wideband line which, in this case, can carry data at a rate of 64 kilobytes per second.

Video-Audio-Storage-Transmission equipment: FieldWorks type Video-Tele-Conferencing unit and two Inmarsat-M4 terminals from Toko System Products.

From the mini satellite dishes (or transceivers), the signal will be sent first to the Indian Ocean Region INMARSAT F3. Then the signal will go to a land earth station (LES) in France. The LES is a gateway that would be connected to an ISDN network and will bring the signal to an ISDN line at the National Broadcast Centre in Toronto.

In all, the pictures and sound of Byron at the summit will travel about 80,000 km and be broadcast live with a delay of only about half a second.

Eric Verheylewegen from Network Innovations says the Sat phone the Everest 2000 team will take to the top weighs 5.3 kilograms. The picture, he says will be somewhat better than watching a real video on the web over a 56 kb/s modem.

The quality can be improved if the background is static and there is not a lot of movement in the frame. For a better picture, it wouldn't be a good idea for Byron to do jumping jacks on the summit.

The whole system has been tested from the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, sucessfully sending audio and video to the CBC broadcast centre in Toronto.

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