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| Gobi Goes Everywhere |
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Unwired May 2009 • Vol.7 Issue 5 Page(s) 58 in print issue |
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Gobi Goes Everywhere Embedded Mobile Broadband Lands In Mobile Devices |
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 Mobile broadband just got a little more convenient. Chip manufacturer Qualcomm, in partnership with a slew of mobile device makers and every major wireless carrier, has created Gobi (www.gobianywhere.com), a mobile broadband chip that comes embedded in notebooks, smartphones, and other mobile devices.  Farewell Dongle, Hello Flexibility It’s one thing to be able to lose the dongle that many currently have to use to access 3G networks from their notebooks, but it’s quite another to have the freedom to choose which carrier you use. Gobi gives you both. Gobi is carrier-agnostic, sort of. All carrier software is certified on the chip, so you can switch carriers as often as you like. (Or at least as often as you can finagle service contracts between mobile carriers.) The process is fairly simple, and, for many users (namely those in an enterprise setting who have tech support), a switch to a new carrier will be transparent. The chip even works internationally. For example, if you’re headed to London and need to obtain a wireless connection when you arrive, you can temporarily reconfigure Gobi to work with the European mobile broadband network. Convenience & Security Using Wi-Fi hotspots has been a staple for business travelers for years, but it has always been rife with availability and security issues. To use Wi-Fi, you must situate your device within a few hundred feet of a hotspot. Because hotspots are available only in certain areas, you’re stuck without service much of the time. Furthermore, security at any publicly accessible Wi-Fi hotspot is severely lax, and accessing those sites generally costs money. If you have a mobile broadband card, you don’t have to worry about those issues. Granted, you’ll have to pay the cost of a carrier subscription, but that cost is consistent and calculable. If a company’s worth of employees sporadically pays for hotspot access, costs will fluctuate wildly. One added bonus is that Gobi includes support for A-GPS (assisted GPS) and Qualcomm’s own gpsOneXTRA Assistance technology, which bolsters GPS-equipped devices, providing positioning capabilities when GPS is unavailable. Support Gobi works on EVDO, HSPA, and CDMA 2000 networks, as well as additional 800MHz and 900MHz bands, including UMTS900, and supports Windows XP/Vista and Linux. Virtually every major wireless carrier is supported, as well, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless in the U.S.; and Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone in Europe. At press time, there were several available devices with Gobi embedded, including several Sony VAIO notebooks, but many more Gobi-embedded products will be widely available in the second half of 2009. Be on the lookout for mininotebooks, notebooks, and UMPCs from Qualcomm OEM partners (see top sidebar).  by Seth Colaner Products With Gobi Embedded There will be additional mininotebooks, notebooks, and UMPCs available with embedded Gobi later in 2009, but for the time being you can find several devices equipped with the technology.
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