A new report has suggested that the uptake of mobile broadband throughout Europe is likely to increase considerably in years to come.

The Telecompaper study suggests that usage of all mobile broadband devices - including PC cards, USB dongles and internal cellular modems - reached 4.3 million units at the end of 2007.

Over the course of the next five years, the Dutch firm predicts that the European mobile broadband market will have an average compound growth rate of 32 per cent, reaching 17 million units by the end of 2012.

Citing the research, Computer Weekly suggests that the strongest growth areas will be in the Nordic countries, as well as Greece, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Furthermore, the firm predicts that internal mobile broadband modems will outstrip external devices by 2011, as collaboration between laptop vendors and mobile operators increases.

Such news follows the recent announcement that new Dell notebooks will ship with inbuilt mobile broadband modems supplied by Ericsson.

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