Mt Everest, the highest rock on the planet now has 3G cell coverage.

Nepal-based company Ncell has installed 3G services at Base Camp to service the thousands of climbers of the 8850m mountain, which now means those who make the summit can not just phone home to say “guess what mum,” they can tweet it, update Facebook or make a video call.

Climbers have been able to use satellite phones for years, but they added to the already expensive cost of climbing if they wanted to phone home.

READ ALSO: A 2degrees customer number update, of sorts

2degrees has launched its 3G network this morning.

Offers are competitive, but not priced to hit Telecom or Vodafone out of the park. They include:

ABOVE: A 2degrees Micro-SIM achieves five bars of 3G reception on NBR's iPad.

There was yet another sign that 2degrees' 3G launch was close last night.

An eagle-eyed Geekzone member spotted that Warehouse Stationery was already listing a series of 2degrees devices, all bundled with data, on its website (see screen shots below).

2degrees is set to launch a new 2G data bundle later today, offering 50MB for $6.

The new pre-pay plan is significantly cheaper than the telco’s casual data plan plan - until 4pm today it’s only data option - which charges a nosebleed 50 cents per megabyte, or the kind of stratospheric pricing usually associated with global roaming.

Vodafone offers $10 for 100MB on its pre-pay deal.