Vodafone has announced that it will begin offering its high-speed enhanced third-generation (3G) mobile broadband devices from Monday.

However, the mobile operator will not start rolling out the actual service, called High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), across its mobile network until late October.

Vodafone’s head of enterprise products, Nick Parbutt, said rollout would commence once base station firmware upgrades were completed, and certain certification and network backhaul issues had been ironed out. However, he said the speed improvements from HSUPA would be more than worth the wait.

“The average download speed we’re achieving today with HSDPA is around 1Mbit/s, but HSUPA should give us around 4-5Mbit/s,” Parbutt said.

Users wishing to access the new service will need to install new hardware, which is available in three versions: a plug ‘n’ play USB modem and two PC Card versions. Each is a tri-band device and can operate in other countries, such as the US, Parbutt said.