We’ve seen some significant announcements recently across the industry by people like Verizon, Motorola and Ericsson who have indicated that they are offering products or services that include bundled mobile broadband via embedded modules in netbooks, for example. Technology-wise, of course, we’re seeing this across HSPA, WiMAX and LTE.
Dongles are surely an interim solution – although they will continue for quite a few years of course as the different adoption waves occur. They’re ideal for upgrading your existing device – goes without saying. But embedded has to be the way to go long term.
Mind you I’m not talking just about netbooks and laptops. For example LTE has the potential to be a disruptive technology in the consumer electronics device space via embedded chipsets in a list of devices including, but not limited to:
• Mobile internet devices (MIDs) & Netbooks
• Portable media/MP3 and MP4 players
• Personal navigation devices
• Digital & video cameras
• Portable game consoles
• TVs & PVRs
So…what’s holding it back? Well of course we’ll have to wait a while for sufficient LTE networks to be up and running.
As well as this there’s the cost of the chipset.
It’s a chicken and egg situation because you need high volumes to get the chipset prices down to single digit dollars to go into the BOM of your average consumer digital camera. But this issue has been overcome before and connectivity will likely go into top of the range devices to start with. At the end of the day, it’s a case of when this will happen, not if!
Tags: bill of materials, BOM, broadband, chipset, consumer, device, digital camera, embedded, Ericsson, games console, HSPA, LTE, media, MID, mobile, mobile Internet device, Motorola, MP3 player, MP4, netbook, personal navigation, portable, PVR, recorder, satnav, TV, Verizon, video, wimax