Accessing other songs requires them to be downloaded via a cellphone network.

Now retailers, airlines, cellphone networks, healthcare providers … everyone with a loyalty programme offers a credit card.

The cellphone networks are complacent and just as guilty as the operators as it means more revenue for them.

Yet most companies selling contract-based services - insurers, gyms, cellphone networks and so forth - insist on getting your bank details and your agreement to allow them to debit your account.

The advent of relatively cheap mobile telephone calls on the world's highest mountain marks another milestone in the relentless expansion of cellphone networks around the globe.