Tens of 1000’s of vacationers (estimates vary from about 30–50 thousand) try and summit Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro annually. And you possibly can greatest imagine numerous these climbers are posting about it.

Now, Tanzania has introduced excessive velocity web to the mountain—making live-tweeting (or ‘gramming, TikTok-ing, etc…) an ascent easier than ever before. Plus, the added connectivity will boost safety for Kilimanjaro’s many guests and guides, in response to Nape Nnauye, a Tanzanian official who spoke on the service’s launch, as reported by The Guardian.

Nnauye additionally tweeted concerning the announcement, writing “tourists can now communicate worldwide from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.”

Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation, the nation’s state-owned supplier, reportedly completed organising the community on Tuesday. Internet connectivity currently reaches 12,450 toes (3,795 meters) above sea degree, in response to a report from the Washington Post. And there are plans to increase it to the very tippy prime: Uhuru Peak at 12,291 toes (5,880 meters), as Nnauye indicated in each his speech and tweet.

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It’s simple to dunk on the thought of bringing web to distant, alpine places. There’s a romantic, emotional argument to be made that one thing intangible is misplaced when wi-fi reaches beforehand off-the-grid spots. But Kilimanjaro is much from a very untouched, cut-off wilderness: It’s a massive tourist attraction that pulls in numerous comparatively inexperienced climbers, and other people die on the mountain yearly.

(Full disclosure: a detailed relative of this Gizmodo author tried to summit Kilimanjaro with minimal preparation as a part of a tour group, and ended up being evacuated with a case of high-altitude pulmonary edema. They survived, however yikes.)

Meanwhile, Mount Everest, which attracts nearly 1/10th as many first-time climbers, got wi-fi years in the past. And a 2020 examine discovered that climbing the world’s tallest mountain has gotten safer, even amid larger crowds (granted, the examine doesn’t specifically point out the web infrastructure).

Safety apart, the transfer to deliver web to Kilimanjaro is sort of definitely one meant to assist in giving a post-pandemic enhance to Tanzanian tourism, which contributed more than 10% of the nation’s GDP in 2019. More than three years in the past, authorities officers even introduced controversial plans to put a cable automobile on the mountain, additionally in service of accelerating tourism.