It has been highlighted that more and more laptops are now being released with their own internal support for mobile broadband access.

As interest in mobile broadband rises the need for service providers and manufacturers to make mobile technology easier and more accessible becomes even more important. For this reason an increasing number of laptops in the UK are being produced with mobile broadband support built-in as standard.

PC Pro expert Stuart Torton advised that there is an increase in the number of laptops that are being built to be more mobile broadband-friendly and pointed out the Advent 4213 as an example, which is currently being offered through Dixons, the high-street retailer. This laptop has full HSDPA support built into the laptop and gets rid of the need for users to buy modem dongle as the mobile SIM card merely plugs directly into the laptop.

Mr Torton advised “Mobile broadband is a feature that has been increasingly creeping into netbooks of late, with Dell announcing a tie-up with Vodafone to offer the service on its new Mini9.” He also added “Previously Asus has hooked up with Orange to offer a similar package.”

There has also recently been a report issued by Tech Radar with an indication from Vodafone that it may no longer be offering its 3.G mobile broadband dongle and will be moving toward using the integrated SIM cards in laptops instead. The decision that Vodafone is planning to take will most likely lead to many of the major providers following suit as it makes more sense to offer mobile broadband access built into the laptops that most providers are offering in their bundled packages these days.