The South Korean telecommunications company has managed to achieve data transfer speeds of gigabits per second, which is a major increase from the approximately 75 megabits per second speeds of 4G or LTE (long-term evolution). It is one of the first significant breakthroughs in developing high-speed mobile data technology, with both technology companies and governmental bodies (including the EU) pouring resources into next-generation data development.  

However, it will be quite some time before the technology is widely implemented, with Samsung suggesting a tentative date of 2020 for its wide availability.

Irish users, meanwhile, are still awaiting the roll-out of 4G technology. Although licenses for the 4G spectrums have been granted to O2 and Vodafone, the companies are still in the expensive process of preparing their networks for LTE. Although it is a significant improvement over 3G in terms of speed and reliability for users, LTE infrastructure is costly to develop and there are currently only a small amount of 4G capable handsets available on the market (such as the iPhone 5).

Today o2 announced they have started work on a €70 million upgrade to their existing 3G network in advance of their introduction of 4G later this year.