Eircom is turning on its 4G mobile network for consumers from Thursday, making it the first of the major networks to make its next generation mobile services publicly available.

The telecoms incumbent, which owns the Meteor and eMobile brands, said it would not be charging customers a premium to access the new services, and will offer unlimited 4G data free of charge until March next year.

Existing customers in Dublin, Athlone and Carlow will be able to access the service once they have a compatible handset and Sim card, which can be picked up from the networks ’ stores or ordered from their online portals. That will mean about 25 per cent of the population will have network coverage from today, with up to 40 per cent covered by Christmas.

The service will be expanded to the urban centres of Limerick, Cork and Galway by the end of October.