The number of 3.5G-enabled mobile phones and other devices available for sale jumped 150 percent compared to the year-ago period, making it one of the more quickly adopted wireless technologies, according to Global Mobile Suppliers Association. For background, 3.5G is technically known as HSDPA, and is a step faster from WCDMA or UMTS. The adoption rates of faster-speed technologies is logical—while other technologies, such as EDGE, made cell-phones slightly more tolerable when it comes to surfing the Web, or consuming other mobile content, HSDPA is coming close to providing true broadband speeds.

The association said that there are now 637 HSDPA products available on the market, with almost half of them mobile phones, according to BusinessWeek. The second-largest product segment of devices are laptops and PC data cards with 103 each. After that comes wireless routers, USB modems and even seven media players with and one camera. At these rates, the GSA’s President Alan Hadden, said 3.5G is outpacing the adoption of other cellular technologies. At the same period of development, HSDPA networks have more than double the number of EDGE or 2.5G devices that were in the market, and more than six times the number of 3G/UMTS devices.

Next up is HSUPA, which provides even faster uplink speeds. The GSA said the number of those devices has doubled in the past six months to 66 total (with most delivering upload speeds of 2.1 mbps).