HP Notebooks To Offer Cellular Choice
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 2/11/2008 1:15:00 PM
Barcelona, Spain — Hewlett-Packard announced plans to offer its first notebook PCs with embedded cellular technology that gives consumers the choice to download data through a CDMA or GSM/W-CDMA carrier without changing our circuit boards.
The notebooks will be available in a range of products in the spring and summer, including ultra-portable, balanced mobility and performance categories, HP said.
Under the plan, unveiled here at the Mobile World Congress, HP will use a Qualcomm chipset and reference design for a software-defined configurable data module that supports both CDMA 1x EV-DO Rev. A and W-CDMA HSDPA/HSUPA (high-speed downlink packet access and high-speed uplink packet access).
With the notebooks, HP notebook users will be able to switch more easily from a CDMA carrier to a GSM/W-CDMA carrier for data service. Currently, HP offers business notebooks with both CDMA 1x EV-DO and W-CDMA HSDPA antennas already included, but to switch from EV-DO to HSDPA, users must manually switch out a daughter-card inside the notebook. The new solution, an HP spokesman said, “has both standards on the same silicon, so there’s no need to switch out cards inside the notebook.”
In HSDPA/HSUPA mode, the silicon operates in the U.S. 850/1900/2100MHz bands, and in GSM/EDGE mode, it operates in U.S. 850/1900MHz bands and foreign 900/1800MHz bands.
