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South Korea has developed and successfully demonstrated a mobile communications technology designed to allow users to download data at much faster rates, helping the country stay ahead in the global race to preempt next-generation mobile communications markets, a state-run institute said Thursday.

The technology named "New Nomadic Local Area Wireless Access (NoLA)" enables users to download data at 3.6 gigabits per second (gbps), higher than 1 gbps, an international benchmark for fourth-generation (4G) mobile communications, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said in a statement.

4G communications refer to technologies enabling data to be downloaded at a rate of 1 gbps when its user moves at 3 kilometers per hour or slower.

Under the 100-mbps network, it takes about one minute to download a movie file, but ETRI said the new technology will reduce the time to just a couple of seconds. Previously, the fastest data transmission rate available to users on the move was 1 gbps. Samsung earlier succeeded in demonstrating the 1-gbps transmission technology.

"With many countries engaged in a fierce competition to preempt the standardization in the 4G communications market, we have successfully developed and demonstrated the 3.6-gbps technology, putting South Korea a step ahead of other rivals in the race," Choi Mun-kee, head of the ETRI, said during a demonstration event held at its headquarters in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul.

The International Telecommunication Union, a global IT policy body, will launch efforts to determine 4G standards next year and complete the process by 2010. Their commercialization is expected in 2012, the institute forecast.

The ETRI said it started to develop the technology last year with a total of 18 billion won (US$19.6 million) assigned for investment over the following five years. It is considering joint research with local tech giants including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, its officials said.

ETRI forecast that NoLA could be applied to home networking and other diverse mobile communications when the 4G standard is officially launched. According to Gartner, the global home networking market will grow 16 percent annually to $97.9 billion by 2010.

The institute said it has applied for eight patents related to the technology at home and abroad since 2006 and that it plans to apply for an additional 20 this year.

SEOUL, Oct. 11 (Yonhap)