Telus has successfully tested its HSPA+ Dual Cell technology, potentially doubling the speed its wireless data network in 2011.

Telus is the first North American carrier to announce deployment in its commercial network of tested HSPA+ Dual Cell technology from Huawei Techologies Co.

Dual Cell uses multiplexing techniques to combine two wireless data carriers. If each network runs at an optimal speed 21 Mb/s, then the single carrier has a theoretical downlink speed of up to 42 Mb/s. However, actual customer throughput is likely to be closer to 8 MB/s, still roughly double the 4 Mb/s seen today.

At present, however, this is just talk, as the devices won’t be available until the first quarter of next year. We are now waiting on Telus’ wireless network partner, Bell Canada, and rival Rogers Communications Inc., to announce their timeline for boosting maximum speeds to 42 Mbps. Bell has said that it is testing the technology, but has yet to announce a commercial upgrade.

Many observers believe that HSPA+ can be pushed over 100 Mbps, though carriers south of the border such as Verizon Wireless are skipping the phase altogether and going to Long Term Evolution, or LTE, widely regarded as the gold standard in 4G technology.

Most  of Telus’ 6.6 million subscribers are on the company’s older iDEN and CDMA/EVDO wireless networks. On the network side, Telus will need to upgrade the radio processors on its antennas by adding a second 1900 Mhz channel and additional software. The opportunity then exists to bond with a third or fourth channel to get to 84 Mbps.