RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. and ATLANTA, Ga., January 4, 2006 - Lenovo and Cingular Wireless today announced plans to integrate wireless wide area network (WWAN) technology from Cingular in upcoming versions of ThinkPad notebooks. ThinkPad users will have built-in, immediate high-speed Internet access via the Cingular BroadbandConnect service without needing a separate PC card or additional hardware.
Through this agreement, ThinkPad notebooks will be preconfigured for BroadbandConnect, which delivers average mobile data connections between 400-700Kbps (kilobits per second) on the downlink and bursts to more than a megabit per second using Cingular’s third-generation (3G) network based on UMTS/HSDPA technology. With Cingular BroadbandConnect services, users can connect anywhere they receive Cingular Wireless data service and will no longer need to be centrally located near wireless hubs, or WiFi “hot spots,” an ideal situation for mobile and small business professionals who are on the go and often located in areas where WiFi hot spots are not readily available.
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3G technologies and applications are getting more mature. Especially when I first read this news, I was really excited and realised that it’s really the right time to get a 3G phone (not really because of this press release but mainly because of streaming TV news, Japan and Korea roaming, etc.). This is really a good example to let people knows that 3G applications are not limited to games, gambling and girls (that’s why we call it 3G!). A laptop computer with embedded 3G technologies is good for people to access the Internet (or private networks thru VPN) on the road at high-speed without the presence of Wi-Fi hotspots.
I guess this is an exclusive deal at this point so I don’t think we can get a 3G enabled ThinkPad until later this year or something. But this is already a good start to have a laptop computer embedding long-range packet radio technologies (most of the laptop computers nowadays come with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which are classified as short-range packet radio technologies). If you are not familier with 3G technologies, the following references will provide you some basic idea of what they are.
References:
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System
Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W-CDMA
High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPA
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