14 DAY TRIAL // 3G-equipped laptops are all well and good, but the broadband support becomes somewhat useless once owners leave the country and out of the coverage zone of their chosen carrier. Lenovo aims to make this stop happening to its customers. With the speed increases enjoyed by wireless broadband (satellite communications) over the past two years, 3G Internet use has gone up by quite a bit.
Lenovo, like pretty much every other notebook vendor out there, has a few laptops equipped with 3G.
Now, the company has gone one step further and made a partnership with Macheen, who agreed to put a scalable cloud-based platform at its disposal.
Long story short, owners of a 3G-capable ThinkPad Classic and ThinkPad Edge should be able to buy access time directly from Lenovo and enjoy their internet without having to switch to local WiFi or dongles when traveling around the world.
Sure, the coverage isn't complete, but it does include the whole of the United States (US) and nine European Countries (UK, Ireland, France and Germany are just some of them).
“We live in world where it’s not only undesirable to be without online access, it’s often disruptive to businesses. For that reason we wanted to create a flexible mobile broadband solution that would be unparalleled in its ability to help business users stay connected and working,” said Dilip Bhatia, vice president and general manager, ThinkPad Business Unit, Lenovo.
Lenovo Mobile Access sells in 30-minute packages (30 MB, $1.95 / 1.54 Euro) and 1-day increments (200 MB, $8.95 / 7.07 Euro). There are 2 GB and 6 GB monthly packages up for grabs too.
“To date, connectivity has been ‘off the rack’ and one-size fits all—too many mobile users are forced to squeeze into a mobile broadband contract that gives them either more or less connectivity than they need, or they go without entirely,” said Richard Schwartz, president and CEO, Macheen.
“With service by Macheen, Lenovo Mobile Access lets users trade ill-fitting plans for tailored connectivity featuring pay-as-you-go rates and customized access for any device, application and user. Quite literally, it’s access to cloud-based content, services and applications that fits the way users work and live, meaning virtually all ThinkPad users can enjoy the value of true mobility.”