Mobile Broadband push promises $1B for ‘ready to run’ HSPA laptops: Ovum critique: Effort needs broader support

A group of PC makers and wireless industry players announced a new effort aimed at embedding HSPA modems into laptops. The initiative, organized by the Euro-focused GSM Association, aims to spend up to $1 billion promoting “ready to run” laptops that will be able to connect to HSPA networks “out of the box.”
The new Mobile Broadband initiative overtly puts itself forward as a “compelling alternative” to Wi-Fi hotspots, but its other, unnamed adversary is WiMAX. As the WiMAX World trade show gets underway today in Chicago, and vendors across the board roll out WiMAX service plans and gadgets, industry players continue to evaluate where to put their monies and efforts. Thus, the GSM Association and the companies behind the Mobile Broadband initiative likely are attempting to bolster their base while luring potential converts.
“It looks a lot like the initiative is designed as a defensive move against WiMAX branding,” said Steven Hartley, senior analyst at research and consulting firm Ovum.
Mike Thelander at Signals Research agreed, adding that the new Mobile Broadband initiative also appears to rely on the same essential business model that many WiMAX proponents have been pushing. Thelander said one of the selling points for WiMAX has been providers’ attempts to distance themselves from two-year contracts and device subsidies, thereby allowing per-day and per-session billing models. Although the GSM Association’s Mobile Broadband announcement didn’t contain any specific information on the business model, Thelander said it may well rely on the same principles in order to foster simple, flexible mobile broadband connections.
“At a higher level, it’s getting a smaller piece of a bigger pie,” Thelander said, explaining that operators may forgo the small number of two-year contracts they could score in order to cash in on a larger number of one-time connections.
A $1B push
In order to grow that pie, the companies behind the Mobile Broadband initiative – which include 3 Group, Asus, Dell, ECS, Ericsson, Gemalto, Lenovo, Microsoft, Orange, Qualcomm, Telef