Nokia's back down on Intel embedded HSDPA deal questionable

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 15 February 2007 09:26

Opinion and Analysis

And those speeds are increasing rapidly. Telstra is already offering 14.4Mbps and Qualcomm has announced new chips that it says will enable 28Mbps by 2008.

Meanwhile Intel is going gung-ho to embed WiMAX technology into laptops but many of the pundits are predicting that WiMAX will at best have a niche role in a world dominated by cellular.

A report from Arthur D Little, just released, says that: "With over 93 commercial networks in operation, HSPA is likely to account for the majority of investment in global mobile broadband networks over the next five years...By comparison mobile WiMax will be a niche technology within the overall global mobile broadband wireless access market, likely to account for at most 15 percent of this network equipment market and perhaps 10 percent of mobile broadband wireless subscribers by 2011-2012."

And to cap it all, Nokia rival Ericsson has just launched  exactly the product that Nokia and Intel were working on: an HSDPA module, which enables 3G mobile broadband functionality to be built into new laptop computers, and other devices.

Håkan Eriksson, CTO, Ericsson, said: "We believe it's what's needed to make mobile broadband take off ... We want to make mobile broadband a mass market and with this new offering we are taking the lead."

Spot on. Whatever the reasons for Nokia and Intel's parting of the ways, you can be sure it's nothing to do with the lack of a market for laptops with embedded HSPDA. It will soon be as common as WiFi, and Intel will be offering it.