Swedish Telecoms company Ericsson have had a busy week - as well as gearing up to demo super-fast 56MB HSPA at CTIA Wireless Exhibition in Las Vegas next month, the folks there have also been developing a new mobile broadband module, which is capable of connecting laptops to HSPA, GPRS and EDGE networks.

The new module has three key features which make it particularly news-worthy; support for the new Windows 7 operating system, fifty per cent less power demands compared with the previous version, and a “wake-on wireless” feature which means that users can wake the laptop from sleep mode remotely.

It is this this wake-on wireless which is particularly key, as it integrates with Intel’s Anti-Theft PC Protection technology, allowing the anti-theft module to be remotely activated if the machine is stolen, and enabling security updates to be sent to it. Combined with GPS technology, this smart little pairing means that stolen machines can be disabled, rendering them useless to a thief, and tracked, to improve chances of recovery - all utilising mobile broadband.

The chip will be available to PC manufacturers in June this year, and Jan Backman, a director of marketing with Ericsson, says he expects devices with embedded modules to be on shelves by midway through the second half of this year. Dell, LG and Toshiba are all said to be planning to use the new module in notebooks.