A group of 16 major IT and mobile companies have united behind a GSMA-led initiative to promote mobile broadband.The companies include Dell, Ericsson, Lenovo, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Toshiba and Vodafone. The group's goal is to help people easily identify laptops that have built in access to the Internet via high-speed networks. The marketing initiative is worth more than $1 billion over the next year.The group will label laptop computers that meet their standards for mobile broadband access with a badge that identifies the laptops as ready for mobile broadband connections.