The network, owned by the Spanish-based company Telefónica, has started upgrading their data services across 14 countries.

This means customers in 250 locations will experience an improvement in the speed of their data connections.

In Ireland, counties Carlow, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Sligo and Wicklow will be the first to receive the upgrade, with the new data network coming fully online later this year.

Download speeds on a 4G, Long-Term Evolution (LTE), connection can more than triple the speed of the current 3G network, giving users access to downloads potentially faster than on a traditional WiFi connection.

This would allow users to download songs instantly and stream videos without having to wait for them to buffer.

Telefónica will spend €200 million on these upgrades over the next three years, having already invested €225 million last November in securing the rights to 4G spectrum.

Several other Irish networks also secured similar rights.