Ericsson and Lenovo, the world’s third largest PC maker, will provide mobile broadband modules based on HSPA – the world’s most widely commercially deployed technology for mobile broadband. Select Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks will include mobile broadband modules beginning in 2008.
HSPA provides a DSL-like experience wirelessly and is currently capable of peak download rates of up to 14.4 Mbps and peak upload rates of up to 2.0 Mbps. There are currently more than 160 commercially deployed HSPA networks globally, serving more than 1 bln subscribers.
“With mobile networks being upgraded globally to handle greater demand for Internet services and data connectivity, consumers are increasingly utilizing mobile phones and notebooks to access the high-capacity services that they have typically experienced only through a wired or WiFi connection,” said Kurt Jofs, Executive Vice President and head of Business Unit Networks, Ericsson.
“Today, Ericsson is doing for broadband what the company did for telephony 20 years ago – making it mobile and available to everyone, everywhere.”
Seamlessly integrated with and optimized to work within the notebook, the built-in broadband module provides superior downloading and uploading performance and takes less power from the battery. Leveraging Ericsson’s in-house HSPA chipset technology and strong patent cross-licensing position, the company’s economies of scale and longstanding operator relationships, Ericsson can offer a very competitive mobile broadband module solution that will help further drive a mass market for mobile broadband.
Market projections indicate that in 2011, approximately 200 mln notebooks will ship annually and Ericsson anticipates that 50% of those notebooks will feature a built-in HSPA mobile broadband module. Users will increasingly have the option to take their broadband connections with them, delivering on the promise of full service broadband, which is anytime, anywhere access from the screen or device of choice.
An inherent advantage of HSPA is that the technology is a natural extension of existing WCDMA/GSM networks, or about 85% of the world’s existing wireless networks, and therefore has the potential to be readily available to a large number of wireless users, creating a mass market for mobile broadband. By 2010, 71% of mobile broadband connections are projected to be HSPA-based.
On average, users will be able to download 20 times faster than with a GSM/GPRS connection. Future evolution steps will increase the HSPA download speed to 42Mbps and the upload speed to 12Mbps.
