Ericsson to provide Mobile Broadband technology for Lenovo notebooks

Telco services provider Ericsson is to provide HSPA-based mobile broadband capability to a range of Lenovo notebooks.

Beginning in 2008, select Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkPad notebooks will have built-in mobile broadband modules that operate using HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), the most popular protocol used for mobile broadband today. 

Currently, several other manufacturers such as Dell, HP and Acer offer embedded 3G mobile broadband technology with certain laptops.  This can then be activated by a mobile network such as Vodafone or T-Mobile.

Ericsson says the new modules provide superior downloading/uploading performance and will use less power from the laptop battery.  HSPA is able to provide maximum peak download rates of up to 14.4 Mbps and uploads of up to 2.0 Mbps.

Frances K. O’Sullivan, Senior Vice President, Product Group of Lenovo, said: ”Our engineering team is working with Ericsson’s engineers to deliver ThinkPads with the fastest and most reliable connectivity available.  We firmly believe that this effort will dramatically change the user mobile experience, allowing ThinkPad customers to more easily search, download, share, and store information and content when they want.”