Consumers in North, Central and South America are eagerly signing up for mobile broadband services. A new report from the trade group 3G Americas with research from Informa Telecoms & Media found that UMTS/HSPA subscriptions increased 81 percent in the Western Hemisphere annually by the end of March 2010. In North America, there were 5 million UMTS/HSPA customers added across eight networks in U.S. and Canada in the first quarter. Globally, there are about 493 million UMTS/HSPA connections. Article