Posted on Saturday, December 13 2008 @ 2:17 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Nokia
announced it plans to ship its first HSPA laptop modem in early 2009, taking on market leader Huawei Technologies.
Nokia will start to ship its first Internet stick in early 2009, aiming to benefit from its know-how and experience in developing 3G technologies, Tapio Markki, vice president for hardware platform components at Nokia, told Reuters.
"Leveraging these capabilities, we believe we are well-positioned to become one of the winning providers for HSPA modem solutions. The market for HSPA modems is expected to grow very rapidly during the coming years," Markki said.
Nokia declined to comment on the price of the device -- which uses HSPA, a super-fast 3G technology -- saying it would be sold mostly through operators and bundled with services.
Strategy Analytics said it expects the global market for so-called "dongles" -- external USB modems and PC cards -- to grow to 26 million units next year from 20 million this year.
