US : Recent dramatic increases in the data transfer speeds that can be achieved by wireless PC card modems will produce a market explosion over the next five years, according to a new study from ABI Research.

Until recently, the best speed that could be achieved by a PC card modem (CPC) installed in a laptop or notebook computer could be compared to a dial-up wired connection. With such low speeds, most road-warriors had no incentive to use PC card modems, and the resulting market turnover was lackluster at best.

But according to ABI Research analyst Brian Pellegrini, the advent of 3G wireless platforms offering speeds almost comparable to wired DSL connections means a vastly greater incentive for consumers — especially business consumers and field service personnel — to buy and use such cards. The result, he says, will be a quite explosive market expansion over the next few years.

CPCs are considerably more expensive than cellular handsets, but prices will be coming down within two years. "With falling prices and the higher speeds available from UMTS and EV-DO networks," says Pellegrini, "we expect to see a huge and sudden increase in demand for CPC devices. Shipments in Europe and the U.S. will begin to grow dramatically, though Asian growth will be more modest. We forecast that by 2010, the size of the CPC market will reach approximately ten times its 2003 levels."

ABI Research's new study, "Cellular PC Card Modems: UMTS and EV-DO: The Next Step for Wireless Data Cards", examines the reasons behind the meager demand for CPC technology in the past, and the drivers behind potentially much larger volumes in the future. It considers major vendor's responses to the trend, and the conflict (or lack of it) between cellular technologies and others such as WiMAX.

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York, ABI Research maintains global operations that support annual research programs, intelligence services and market reports in wireless, automotive, semiconductors, broadband, and energy.