The leading mobile phone operators along with several top software and hardware suppliers are supporting a $1 billion (550 million) effort to encourage adoption of 3G mobile broadband services.
The group of 16 telecoms and IT companies including Vodafone, Microsoft and Asustek, are participating in the big-money promotional campaign which is being organised by the GSM Association.
Its aim is to make it simpler for users to identify laptops that have built-in access to the internet via high-speed 3G mobile phone networks.
According to research commissioned by the GSMA and Microsoft and carried out by Pyramid Research, there is demand for $50 billion (27.7 billion) worth of such laptops this year.
"We definitely expect to see several hundred thousand in the shops by Christmas time," said Mike O'Hara, the GSMA's chief marketing officer.
The group said the move also could pave the way to connect devices from MP3 music players to refrigerators and cars to the internet in future.
The partners will label laptop computers that meet their standards for mobile broadband access with a new service mark that identifies laptops ready for mobile broadband connection "out of the box."
Many in the telecoms and computer industries believe that most people in the world will have their first and perhaps only experience of the internet via a mobile device.
"While there will always be a place for Wi-Fi connectivity, the great benefit of mobile broadband might be that it liberates the user from the spatial tyranny of the so-called 'hotspot,'" Shiv Bakhshi, director of mobility research at IT research firm IDC, said in a GSMA statement released today.
Other partners in the initiative include 3, Dell, ECS, Ericsson, Gemalto, Lenovo, Orange, Qualcomm, Telefonica, T-Mobile and Toshiba.
