T-Mobile USA announced plans to upgrade its national high-speed 3G service to the High Speed Packet Access Plus or “HSPA+” technology at the CTIA (News - Alert) Wireless 2010 expo, held this week in Las Vegas.

By the end of 2010, T-Mobile expects to have HSPA+ deployed across the breadth of its 3G footprint, covering more than 100 metropolitan areas and 185 million people, according to company officials.

HSPA+ is capable of delivering customer data speeds faster than the current 3G network technology. It gives customers a superior wireless data experience when they access their mobile social network, stream videos or share content, company officials said.

At CTIA, T-Mobile (News - Alert) hosted live demonstrations of the home broadband-like HSPA+ data speeds on a variety of products including the new Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with T-Mobile webConnect.

webConnect is the first netbook from T-Mobile, which is launched on March 24 online and in T-Mobile stores in select markets.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 offers built-in access to T-Mobile’s 3G network, Windows 7 and the Intel (News - Alert) Atom processor N450 for easy Web surfing, instant messaging, e-mail, social networking, photo sharing and superb multimedia playback in one small, ultra-portable device.

According to Cole Brodman, chief technology and innovation officer for T-Mobile USA, webConnect Rocket and Dell Inspiron Mini10 deliver real customer benefits with faster speeds available today.

T-Mobile’s 3G network offers backward compatibility, Brodman said. With this feature, most of their 3G smartphones will deliver a better mobile Web experience. “Customers don’t have to spend money on a device upgrade, which is a rarity in consumer electronics,” Brodman added.

“Consumers want a mobile broadband experience that’s easy and as good as their connection at home on the best wireless devices available,” Neville Ray (News - Alert), senior vice president of engineering and operations for T-Mobile USA, said in a statement. “T-Mobile’s network is primed to deliver the speeds that today’s data users crave.”

T-Mobile successfully launched its HSPA+ network service in Philadelphia last fall. The company has made HSPA+ commercially available in new markets including major areas of New York City, New Jersey, Long Island and suburban Washington, D.C., with deployment in Los Angeles coming very soon, company officials said.

The company will continue to aggressively expand the availability of HSPA+ in additional 3G markets, putting the necessary backhaul capacity in place to support the very fast speeds, the company said.

T-Mobile demonstrated the “blazing fast actual peak download speeds” of HSPA+ in Las Vegas using a number of broadband devices, including the T-Mobile webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick, the first HSPA+ capable device from a national U.S. wireless carrier; the Dell Inspiron Mini 10; the HTC (News - Alert) HD2; the Motorola CLIQ XT and the T-Mobile myTouch 3G.