Nokia to enter HSPA dongle market

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 14 December 2008 14:28

IT Industry - Strategy

After pulling out of the market for laptop-embedded HSPA modems, Nokia is getting into the HSPA dongle game.

Tapio Markki, vice president for hardware platform components at Nokia, told Reuters that Nokia would start to ship its first HSPA modem in early 2009.

He told Reuters that Nokia believed its expertise in 3G technologies would make it well-positioned to become one of the winning providers for HSPA modem. Nokia told Reuters that the devices would be sold mostly through operators and bundled with services. It declined to reveal pricing.

Nokia and Intel announced, in September 2006, plans to work with Intel to produce HSPA modems for embedding in laptops but abandoned the venture in February 2007 claiming it could not see a sufficiently strong business case.

While the market for external HSPA modems in undoubtedly very strong, doubts remain about embedded units, despite the recent formation of a global alliance led by the GSM Assocation to promoted laptops with embedded wireless broadband as "a compelling alternative to WiFi."

However, according to the latest figures from the Global Mobile Suppliers Association the number of laptops on the market with embedded HSPA (218) exceeds the number of USB modem (154) and PCMCIA/ExpressCard modems (143)