AT&T partnership reduces price of embedded HSPA laptops

AT&T Mobility announced a new partnership with Lenovo and Ericsson, which the carrier says could reduce the price of an HSPA-embedded laptop by as much as $150, making it comparable to laptops that are not embedded. AT&T spokesperson John Kampfe would not confirm that AT&T is subsidizing the laptops, but said that the company believes that by bringing down the upfront costs, it is eliminating a barrier to adoption.

The HSPA modules, which are made by Ericsson, will be embedded in a range of Lenovo Thinkpad laptops, and will allow consumers to automatically connect to AT&T's LaptopConnect service. AT&T will provide 30 days of free DataConnect service. In third quarter earnings, AT&T reported that wireless data revenues were up more than 50 percent. In addition, over the past year the company has doubled the number of LaptopConnect customers.

For more:
- see this release

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