China News Client, Beijing, May 18 (Reporter Wu Tao) The 2020 Mount Everest elevation measurement has entered the summit stage, and related personnel will also conduct live broadcasts and 5G signal tests on the summit of Mount Everest. How is the communication, power, etc. behind this guaranteed? How hard is Everest on 5G?
The staff set up a 5G base station in the forward camp at the altitude of 6,500 meters. Image source: China Mobile
How to transport the equipment?
——All 5.8 tons of optical cables are carried by people
On April 30, the Everest camp at an altitude of 6,500 meters opened the world's highest 5G base station, and theoretically achieved 5G signal coverage of the mountain climbing route and summit of the north slope of Mount Everest.
Recently, Li Chongming, the head of the Wireless Optimization Center of the Tibet Mobile Network Ministry, said in an interview with China News and other media that the actual construction of Everest on 5G is more difficult than expected. "Although I have a construction of 5,300 meters in Everest Base Camp in 2013, 4G base station experience, but did not really experience in the 5800 meters and 6500 meters camps. "
"Because the 5800-meter and 6500-meter camps are all mountain roads and cannot be opened to traffic, the base station and power supply equipment are carried by a transportation team of 46 yaks."
"The transmission cable should be laid from the Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5,300 meters to the 6,500-meter advance camp. A total of 25 kilometers of optical cables need to be laid. A 3 kilometers of armored optical cable weighs 700 kilograms and a 25 kilometers optical cable weighs 5.8 tons. It's all carried by human hands. "
"In a place like Everest where you have to walk for a long time to breathe and the weather is extremely bad, it takes 40 people to carry a 3 kilometer cable. You need to take a few steps to rest. It is not tired, it is lack of oxygen."
Li Chongming also said that sleeping at the camps of 5800 meters and 6500 meters is a very painful thing. Due to lack of oxygen, everyone basically sleeps at night for 2 or 3 hours, and wakes up once at night. The place is extravagant, "Due to the cold weather, everyone like a penguin sleeps in two or three people in a tent."
Since vehicles above 5300 meters above sea level on Mount Everest are impassable, Yak shoulders the heavy responsibility of transporting 5G base station equipment. Photo courtesy of Huawei
What about power supply?
——Power generation by oil engine, use tent to ensure temperature
According to reports, in addition to wireless network solutions, communication systems have other elements, such as electricity. Including the height measurement of Mount Everest also requires communication and power guarantee.
Chen Gang, the planning and construction department of China Mobile Tibet Corporation, which is mainly responsible for the network maintenance and guarantee work in the later stage of the Mount Everest survey in 2020, said that one of the main difficulties in the communication guarantee is the difficulty of power supply for the base station.
Chen Gang said that the current 5300-meter base camp base station is the city power + oil machine power supply mode, in the 5800-meter transition camp, 6500 meters forward camp is the pure oil machine power supply.
"Due to the load of the yak, the 3KW oil engine with a net weight of 40 kg can only be transported to the 5800-meter and 6500-meter camps. Due to the extremely harsh climate of the 6500-meter forward camp, the temperature is as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius, the output function of the oil engine is seriously reduced There is a big problem with the power supply of the base station. "According to reports, each camp consumes about 80L-90L of oil daily.
"How cold is the 6,500-meter camp? Not only people can't bear it, but the machine can't bear it either. The computer can't be turned on. The staff on duty will sleep at night and hold the computer in their arms. The computer can be turned on the next day." Chen Gang said.
In order to ensure security, Chen Gang said that he has equipped 5 oil engines at the 5,800-meter and 6500-meter camps respectively, and adopted the 3 + 2 backup method. There is also a protection tent outside the oil engine to ensure the temperature of the oil engine.
"In addition, after the survey team began to climb to the top, the oil engine was powered 24 hours a day to avoid the problem of being unable to start due to low temperature; we are still storing 600L of emergency oil at the 6,500m camp and 300L of emergency oil at 5,800m." Chen Gang said.
The staff is building the base station. For image
Is the network determined to meet the standard?
——Several tests have finally "found in my heart"
In addition to overcoming the harsh natural environment, the key to the Everest on 5G is the key to peak-coverage technology. Zhang Yang, deputy manager of the wireless network optimization office of China Mobile ’s Network Division, said, "Will build a 5G base station at 6,500 meters to cover the summit of Mount Everest, can it be covered, and can the rate meet the requirements after coverage? This has been our constant concern child."
"All conclusions are based on theoretical derivation and link budget. We can't test on the summit of Mount Everest in advance, so we have no idea about the peak communication guarantee."
Zhang Yang said that in order to further determine the network performance of the summit, from April 7th, China Mobile and Huawei personnel in Lhasa looked for a similar point to the environment of Mount Everest: the forward camp and the summit of Mount Everest were linearly 5 kilometers away, looking up at no Obscured, conducted simulation tests, and finally chose to build 5G base stations in the People ’s Hospital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
"The testers climbed the Miqiongri Temple to test and verify. After completing the project construction, the testers could not receive the 5G signal on the mountain anyway, and reached the preliminary conclusion that 5G cannot cover so far. It was really scared at that time. Cold sweat, it feels like the sky is falling. "
Zhang Yang said that after a night of discussion and repeated research by Huawei ’s rear R & D personnel, it was found to be due to incomplete parameter settings, and the parameters were adjusted for retesting on April 18th. With 5G 100MHz bandwidth, the uplink and downlink rates reached 40Mbps The effect of / 400Mbps or more meets the peak demand, and I finally have a bottom. (Finish)