While most of the world’s largest cellphone makers are household names, there’s a pretty good chance that you have never heard of the company at No. 4 on the list.

In part, that’s because ZTE is best known for the phones it sells in China, its home market. In recent years, though, ZTE has begun to make inroads in the U.S. Its progress, however, has been largely invisible to consumers.

ZTE’s phones and hotspots tend to bear the brand of the carriers selling them, rather than its own, but the company said that, in time, it expects to see its name out there more.

“We understand the U.S. market is primarily a market driven by the carriers,” ZTE U.S. CEO Lixin Cheng said in an interview at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show. “Compared with some of our competitors, we are more willing to customize our product.”

In 2011, the company debuted a number of new products, including the Chorus phone for Cricket, and the Android-based Avail smartphone for AT&T.

So far this year, ZTE has introduced just one product — a hotspot for Verizon. In the coming months, though, ZTE plans a number of products for the U.S., including several for fast new LTE data networks.

“We will launch an LTE smartphone, tablet and mobile hotspot, and other data products in the United States,” Cheng said. “That’s our strategy this year.”

The company also plans to support both Android and Windows Phone smartphones, with plans on tap to launch a Microsoft-powered smartphone in the U.S. this year.

“We will make sure we have a wide competence in-house to support both operating systems,” said Cheng, who noted that Microsoft is a key partner for his company for its current “Mango” version of Windows Phone, as well as for its upcoming “Tango” low-end effort. ZTE is also interested in what Microsoft has in store with Windows 8.

ZTE began life in 1998 as an effort to bring telephony to more of rural China.

Cheng said the company sees a similar opportunity in the U.S., where smartphones are still either pricey or tied to expensive contracts.

As has been a challenge for fellow Chinese networking-device maker Huawei, some have raised questions over whether ZTE’s products — particularly networking gear — pose security risks.

Cheng rebuffs such concerns, noting that the company is publicly traded, with a largely independent board. And as for the security of its networks, Cheng notes that ZTE is already the key infrastructure provider behind Gogo’s inflight Wi-Fi.

“Our company’s values (are) very comparable with America’s values,” he said.

This time it’s GoGo Inc., maker of GoGo Inflight Internet service, which you’ve probably used at some point if you’ve ever accessed Wi-Fi during a flight.

The company is filing for an initial public offering that could raise as much as $100 million.

GoGo’s S-1 doesn’t say how many shares it plans to sell or at what price. But it does plan to trade under the stock symbol — you guessed it — GOGO.

There are currently 1,177 commercial airplanes offering Internet access through GoGo: That’s about 85 percent of North America’s Internet-enabled commercial aircraft.

According to the filing, GoGo’s consolidated revenue increased to $113.8 million from $60.1 million, a year-over-year increase of 89.3 percent in the nine-month period ending in September. Despite increasing revenue, the company still lost $25.8 million in the first nine months of 2011.

A large portion of GoGo’s revenue comes from its customers in the business aviation market, for which it provides both broadband connectivity and satellite-based communications systems. GoGo’s business aviation arm has sold approximately 6,000 ATG and satellite-based communications systems for private planes and has signed agreements with all of the largest fractional jet operators, according to the filing.

On the the commercial side, the company cites the emergence of the “connected lifestyle” for consumers, coupled with the projected growth of the worldwide travel market, as evidence of demand for its in-flight product. In 2010, there were approximately 2.7 billion scheduled passengers on commercial aircraft worldwide, with 630 million in the U.S. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of passengers worldwide is expected to grow to nearly 3 billion by 2012.

GoGo plans to expand internationally and to penetrate even more of the business aviation market, with the number of business jets in the North American and global business markets expected to grow by 8.3 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively, by 2015.

One of Gogo’s biggest risks is its dependence on partnerships with North American airline fleets for about half of its consolidated revenue. Approximately 45 percent of its commercial airline revenue — generated within a nine-month period ending September 30, 2011 — was acquired through Delta Air Lines; approximately 18 percent came via GoGo’s partnership with American Airlines, whose parent company, AMR Corp., recently filed for bankruptcy.

The company also cites as risks the increasing demand for in-flight WiFi, and the possible incapacity to meet that demand, as well as the need to keep up with rapidly advancing technologies in network infrastructure.

Low on the risk list, though still worth noting, is that in June of 2006, Gogo purchased at auction a $31 million, exclusive 10-year license for three megahertz, air-to-ground spectrum, outbidding at the time JetBlue LiveTV LLC and a company called Space Data Spectrum Holdings. GoGo expects to renew that license, but the FCC could, in the future, decide to auction additional spectrum for ATG use that is not currently designated for that purpose.

Illinois-based GoGo Inc. was originally incorporated in Texas in June of 1991 as Aircell Inc., and later became Aircell Holdings Inc. On June 15 of this year, Aircell Holdings Inc. officially changed its name to Gogo Inc.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, UBS, Allen & Company, Evercore Partners and William Blair & Company are listed as the underwriters on the IPO filing.

These days, though, smartphones and tablets make up more than half of such connections, according to new data released on Tuesday by Boingo Wireless. February was the first month that mobile devices outnumbered laptops; by May, such devices amounted to 59 percent of Wi-Fi connections.

A year ago, laptops represented two-thirds of Boingo’s connections, and two years ago, just a quarter of machines accessing the airport Wi-Fi networks were mobile devices.

“Since the launch of the iPhone in June 2007, we’ve seen a marked growth trend for non-laptop devices, but the exponential growth in iPhones and iPads in the last year pushed mobile devices past laptops, showcasing just how disruptive the trend is,” Boingo VP Dawn Callahan said in a statement.

Boingo notes that laptops aren’t going away — mobile devices are just proliferating much faster. There are twice as many laptops, for example, than there were in 2007. However the smartphone has taken off, fueled by the launch of the iPhone in June of 2007.

Apple’s iOS continues to dominate the mobile space, accounting for 83 percent of the mobile total. Combined, all Android devices are still a distant fourth place behind the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch when it comes to popularity on Boingo’s network.

The findings mirror a rise in mobile devices using inflight Wi-Fi, such as that offered by Gogo. In the air, iPads account for more than a third of big-screen connections, compared to about 20 percent for Macs and 41 percent for Windows PCs. Android devices trail Apple’s mobile products on Gogo’s networks as well.

Mobile devices are also gobbling up a lot more data than they did just two years earlier, Boingo said. On a monthly basis, the average mobile device consumed 211 megabytes of data in June, compared with 114 megabytes in May 2009. And the devices are also consuming that data in less time, gulping an average of 8.9 megabytes in every 10 minutes of use, compared with 3.7 megabytes in the same period two years earlier.

Gogo tells AllThingsD that iPhones make up nearly two-thirds of the mobile devices using its inflight Wi-Fi service. Android devices make up just 12 percent, trailing even the iPod touch, which accounts for 20 percent of handheld connections.

The BlackBerry accounted for 6 percent (think suits paying for e-mail and tweens for BlackBerry messenger). Meanwhile, Windows Phone and other phones are used on Gogo about as often as those air sickness bags stuffed into the seat pocket. (Although parent-of-two Kara Swisher tells me those bags are still used more often than one would like to think.)

Mobile devices pay slightly lower fares on longer flights on Gogo, with access maxing out at $7.95, as compared to $12.95 for using a Mac or PC on those cross-country trips.

Tablets like the iPad were not included in these mobile numbers as such devices are counted with computers (and also pay the higher PC rates).

But the iPad is a popular frequent flier as well, accounting for more than a third of large screens using Gogo in June. All versions of Windows totalled 41 percent with Mac OS machines making up just under 20 percent.

The crafty little advertising move comes at a time when Chrome needs a boost to take on the Web browser competition. Currently Chrome has 8.5 percent of global users, according to NetMarketShare, compared to 59 percent for Internet Explorer, 23 percent for Mozilla Firefox and 5.4 percent for Apple’s Safari. Yesterday, the new social browser RockMelt launched, and while the only people using it so far are avid followers of tech blogs, the company will obviously need to figure out a way to use some of its $10 million in funding and its investors’ experience building browsers to gain market share. (Interestingly, NetMarketShare says mobile browsing is only 2.8 percent of the market. Room to grow.)

Google’s in-flight Wi-Fi will be on domestic AirTran, Delta and Virgin America flights (which use Aircell’s Gogo service) from Nov. 20 to Jan. 2 (which is sadly 23 days shorter than last year’s promotion).

Image courtesy NASA.

All of the major digital maps contain erroneous information about our street in Virginia, and don’t even show several new streets near our home that were built over three years ago. I infer that there is one source of cartography used by these Web services, and also by my Garmin navigation system. But I can’t find out what it is. How can an individual get something like this corrected?

There are actually two main companies that make the underlying maps that most of the navigation-device makers and digital-map sites use. One is called Tele Atlas (TLATF.PK), and one is called Navteq (NVT). Garmin (GRMN) uses Navteq. Each mapping company has a Web page where users can report errors or changes.

For Navteq’s error-reporting Web page, go to navteq.com and click on “Map Reporter.” For Tele Atlas’ similar page, go to teleatlas.com and click on “Report Map Changes.”

In reading your review of the new Gogo in-flight wireless Internet system, I wondered about two things: Does it support “virtual private networks,” and when will it be installed on Amtrak trains?

While I didn’t test this, Gogo’s maker, Aircell, says that VPNs, which are used by many big companies, do indeed work over the service.

As for Amtrak, the Gogo system wouldn’t work for trains, because its antennas point up, into the sky, and don’t cover ground locations like railroad tracks. However, if you are on an Amtrak train in an area where cellphone towers are near the tracks, and your laptop computer or cellphone can pick up cellular data signals, you can already surf the Web and do email and other online tasks on the train.

In fact, I happen to be writing this column on an Amtrak Acela train between Washington and New York, and, using a Verizon (VZ) laptop card, my laptop is able to access the Internet with only occasional lapses.

Because of problems I had with my computer, I lost my Internet Explorer favorites. How can I save them so I can easily restore them if they get wiped out again?

There are several methods. You should, of course, be backing up all your key data, including your browser favorites or bookmarks, regularly, either to a local external disk, or to an online backup service. That would create a fairly fresh backup of your favorites. You could also use one of several Web sites that specialize in hosting, and sharing, bookmarks or favorites. They allow you to add bookmarks to your online list as you surf, and also to upload and download the favorites and bookmarks you keep locally on your computer. The best known of these sites is probably del.icio.us, which is at http://del.icio.us.

The simplest method, however, is probably to just export your favorites to a file and save it in your Documents folder, on your desktop, or on a USB thumb drive. You can then use this file to restore your favorites in case of disaster. To do this in the latest version of Microsoft (MSFT) IE, click on the “Add to Favorites” button, select “Import and Export,” click “Next,” then click “Export Favorites” and walk through the steps that follow. Detailed instructions for all versions of IE are at: support.microsoft.com/kb/211089.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.