IFA Owners of Acer's Aspire One mini laptop will soon get the USB 3G modem support so many of them have been crying out for - and that's without having to replace Linux with Windows XP.

Robert Perenz, Acer Europe's product manager for the AA1, confirmed that the machine has the ability to support HSDPA dongles, but admitted the missing link is a utility to initiate and managed connections to carriers.

However, that will be rectified in the coming weeks, he promised here at IFA, Berlin today.

Right now, the Linux version of the AA1 won't support a USB HSDPA modem out of the box - though there's a flyer in the package that invites owenrs to download code that will allow the Small, Cheap Computer to do so.

So far, though, Acer has yet to release the code.

The Connection Manager utility works, Perenz told Register Hardware, and is now undergoing final testing ahead of its release.

In the meantime, some AA1 owners have turned to a Linux version of Vodafone's Mobile Connect in a bid to get their SCCs connecting at mobile broadband speeds. However, the utility doesn't support all the available HSPDA modems, only those resold by the carrier.

The arrival of Acer's own utility is also a step toward the release of an internal HSDPA module for the AA1, space for which - and for a SIM card - already exists within the laptop.

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