Shares in Telus Corp., Western Canada’s leading telecommunications operator, were trading 2.64% higher today, after the company reported higher profits and announced plans to increase its dividend by approximately 10% in each of the next two years.

A jump in wireless data usage was largely responsible for a 19% increase in Telus’ profits, which came in at $328 million during the first quarter of 2011, up from $273 million in the first three months of last year. Revenue also increased, from $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion, with wireless data sales along showing a 44% rise.

Telus added 52,000 new postpaid wireless customers during the first quarter, but lost approximately 20,000 prepaid users during the same time. This seems to suggest that many occasional cell phone users with “pay-as-you-go” accounts are switching to monthly subscriptions as they find themselves using their mobile devices more often and for functions other than simple phone calls.

Wind Mobile has announced plans to offer the BlackBerry Bold 9780 at an outright cost of $450, about $50 cheaper than other Canadian carriers such as Telus Mobility and Bell.

The newest BlackBerry Bold devices boasts a 2.4-inch display, QWERTY keyboard, and new-and-improved 5-megapixel digital camera, as well as an upgraded BlackBerry 6.0 operating system.

Wind Mobile is currently offering a promotional rate of $25/month for unlimited province-wide wireless calling, or $40/month for unlimited Canada-wide calling with a mobile data component.

Telus Mobility customers sent and received 5.4 billion text messages in 2010, up from 2.7 billion the year before.

The exploding popularity of texting was undoubtedly fueled by the growing number of feature-rich smartphones on the market, including many with built-in QWERTY keyboards. As of the third quarter of 2010, more than a quarter (28%) of Telus customers were using smartphones, up from 18% in 2009.

“2010 was really the year where consumers started getting into data in a big way,” said Telus spokesman, Shawn Hall. “It used to be the territory of the business user — you know the black suit BlackBerry, but with the iPhone and really nifty Android and more consumer-oriented BlackBerrys hitting their stride, more and more consumers are picking up smartphones.”

Wind Mobile is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its commercial launch, making it the first of several new Canadian wireless competitors to do so.

Wind initially rolled out services in Toronto and Calgary on December 16, 2009, and launched networks in Edmonton, Ottawa, and Vancouver over the course of 2010. The company had some 140,000 customers as of last month.

“Getting Wind out the gate in the five markets we have launched is obviously amazing and bringing the first real competition in those markets in over a decade has been great,” commented Wind chairman, Anthony Lacavera. “We still have a long way to go, we still have a lot of work to do but we’ve made a lot of progress.”

In the year ahead, Wind plans to start going after the business telecom market.

“For 2011, we will be rolling out to small and medium-sized businesses,” Lacavera said. “We’re going to be offering a wireless bundle, which includes of course the Internet and all of the hosting services — their office Internet and their office phone services — in addition to mobile.”

This will be made possible through a partnership with OneConnect, which provides IP and telecommunications services to small and medium-sized business and is owned by Wind’s parent company, Globalive.

American cell phone carrier, MetroPCS, is making a new Android-based smartphone, the Huawei Ascend, available for $179 on a prepaid basis.

The Ascend features a sizable 3.5-inch display, built-in Wi-Fi, a 3.2-megapixel digital camera, and a Google Android 2.1 operating system.

Unlike major U.S. carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS does not require its users to sign contracts, but offers service on a pay-as-you-go month-to-month basis.