Lenovo announced that it has selected Ericsson to provide HSPA broadband modules within select ThinkPad notebooks to be available later this year. Lenovo is Ericsson’s first announced mobile broadband module customer.

Optimized to work within notebooks, the integrated broadband module, according to a joint statement, provides superior downloading and uploading performance with less drain on the battery.

“Lenovo is committed to PC innovation and providing our customers the latest functionality and tools to enhance their computing experience,” said Frances O’Sullivan, senior vice president of Products at Lenovo, in a statement.

Kurt Jofs, executive vice president and head of Business Unit Networks at Ericsson, said in a statement: “With mobile networks being upgraded globally to handle greater demand for Internet services and data connectivity, consumers are increasingly utilizing mobile phones and notebooks to access the high-capacity services that they have typically experienced only through a wired or Wi-Fi connection. Ericsson is doing for broadband what the company did for telephony 20 years ago – making it mobile and available to everyone, everywhere.”

Lenovo has not announced service partners for the notebooks.