Korean researchers said yesterday they have developed a mobile communications technology that allows data transmission seven times faster than what is currently available.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute said that it successfully demonstrated yesterday what it called the "3.9-generation" mobile communications technology, or 3.9G, for the first time in the world.

The new technology was jointly developed by Korea's top handset manufacturer, Samsung Electronics Co., and the largest mobile carrier KTF Corp, it said.

"The technology has been handed over to Samsung Electronics, which plans to commercialize it in late 2009," the ETRI said in a statement.

The technology, called 3GPP LTE, enables people to use various multimedia services at a high data rate of 30 megabits per second while moving at a speed of up to 120 kilometers per hour, the state-run institute said.

The ETRI said that, with the successful demonstration, Korea is at least six months ahead of global competitors in wireless telecommunications technology. "This will also help Korea to occupy a favorable position when the competition to standardize 4G starts."

In a lab in Daejeon, south of Seoul, the ETRI demonstrated high-speed transmission of data at 105Mbps for downloading, and 65Mbps for uploading. Once the technology is fully rolled out, it will enable a data transmission rate of 100 Mbps for slow-moving users, at a speed of up to 3 kilometers per hour, and 30 Mbps for those moving at a speed of up to 120 kilometers per hour, researchers said.

That is seven times faster than the speed realized by High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA. This means that users will be able to view high-definition video in real time anywhere on a wireless network and even in a fast-moving vehicle.

The institute predicted that, by 2010, about 30 percent of all handsets will be using the new technology, and that the 3GPP LTE will create a 13 trillion won market in the next five years.