Huawei and ZTE announce plans to deploy a 5G network on Mars by 2020

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Huawei and ZTE announce plans to deploy 5G networks on Mars by 2020
At a joint press conference in the China National Space Administration's Beijing headquarters, Huawei and ZTE announced their intentions to deploy a planet-wide 5G telecommunications network on Mars by 2020. The roll-out will happen in consecutive stages, beginning with the Tharsis and Elysium provinces - home of the largest known volcanoes in the Solar System. It will then proceed with the ancient Hellas, Argyre, and Isidis impact basins, before carrying on to the Valles Marineris - a beautiful 4000km long system of interconnected canyons and roughs.

Eventually, China's 5G Martian efforts will reach the planet's famous polar ice caps as well. By then, the companies estimated, Mars' 5G network infrastructure should be fully operational and the majority of available spectrum allocated between the highest-bidding Earth carriers. The two telecoms promised that Mars' 5G network will offer the same astonishing speeds as its Earthly counterpart. However, they admitted that future subscribers in specific areas, such as the 22km-tall Olympus Mons, will have to rely on flying drones for coverage, which might result in slight speed drops – anywhere between 0.5 to 1Gbps, depending on weather conditions. While this was being discussed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg chimed in via Google Hangouts to congratulate Huawei and ZTE for “bringing the power of the Internet” to “the next billion Martian people”, and voiced his desire to get involved with "the drone part".


Dr. Wen Tong, Head of Wireless Research at Huawei, pointed out that deploying a robust telecommunications infrastructure across the Red Planet is of “utmost importance”, even more important than populating the celestial body first. “When the first of Earth's colonies sets foot on Martian soil,” he exclaimed, “we cannot afford to rob them of the opportunity to Instagram themselves, FaceTime their Earth relatives, and check-in on Foursquare right away, because someone said that laying down the 5G infrastructure is 'second priority'.” ZTE Chairman Hou Weigui added that the Martian effort is “an important step in ZTE's ongoing expansion across the Solar System.”

The two representatives declined to answer questions about how, exactly, they will accomplish building the necessary infrastructure. Naysayers have already begun debating whether the press conference was a staged April Fools event.

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