Climbers at the summit of Mt Everest will not have to wait as long to download their attachments, with China Mobile upgrading coverage on the mountain to 4G.

The service will help the transmission of footage coming from the Everest base camp, where high definition broadcasts began earlier this year.

Mt Everest has had GSM covered for six years now, after it was installed by China Mobile and Huawei (a telecoms group currently banned from the NBN by the Australian government). This was not the first time people could send texts from the top of the world; 2010, Swedish provider NCell deployed a 3G base station also at 5,200 metres on the Nepalese side.

With 4G coverage now in one of the harshest and most inaccessible areas of the planet, it has put the spotlight on the technology’s rollout in Australia. So far around two thirds of people can access a 4G network, with coverage only available in areas of dense population.