Ericsson and Lenovo Doing Mobile Broadband

Swedish wireless company Ericsson has announced a new deal with China's Lenovo to supply HSPA mobile broadband mobiles for Lenovo notebook computers.

Sweden’s Ericsson has inked a deal with Chinas’ Lenovo to supply HSPA mobile broadband modules for the company’s notebook computers. According to Ericsson, selected ThinkPad notebooks will include its mobile broadband modules laters this year.

"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 Ericsson executive VP Kurt Jofs, in a statement. "Today, Ericsson is doing for broadband what the company did for telephony 20 years ago – making it mobile and available to everyone, everywhere."

Ericsson’s modues are based on HSPA technology, which can theoretically offer peak download rates of 14.4 Mbps, although upload rates are about 2 Mbps. HSPA is already deployed on about 160 commercial wireless networks around the world covering about a billion people; in the U.S., AT&T offers 2.6 Mbps HSDPA service, although Edge Wireless and T-Mobile have announced plans to deploy service.

Lenovo will be Ericsson’s first client for mobile broadband solutions. No information was released on pricing or specific product bundles.