Leap Broadband, a Dublin-based firm that supplies wireless broadband to businesses, plans to invest €10 million to "unbundle" Eircom's local access network.

The firm, which was founded by the two sons of Fianna Fáil TD Mr Seán Ardagh, has applied to gain access to 30 of Eircom's telephone exchanges in the State.

Within two weeks Leap Broadband will begin testing its broadband service in Dublin in one of the State's first examples of "unbundling the local loop".

Unbundling Eircom's local access telephone network is a process through which Eircom's rivals place their own equipment in telephone exchanges and take control of the copper lines that run into homes and businesses.

The process was mandated by the European Commission in 2001 as a way to improve competitiveness but it has so far proved elusive in the Republic.

Less than 2,000 Irish phone lines have so far been opened to competition due to resistance by Eircom to unbundling and the high cost of putting equipment in exchanges.

A recent European Commission report noted there was an 110 per cent increase in the pace of unbundling in Europe this year, with the total number of unbundled lines up to 3.8 million in July from 1.8 million last year.

But there has been no corresponding increase in unbundling in the Republic in this period.

Leap Broadband announced yesterday that it has chosen telecoms equipment made by Lucent Technologies to help it unbundle and signed a services deal with IBM Global Services.

Mr Charlie Ardagh, director of Leap Broadband, said the firm expected to invest €10 million over the next few years to offer new types of broadband to firms.

It will offer a new type of broadband technology called SDSL (symmetric digital subscriber line) which enables businesses to send information much faster over the internet than currently possible using standard technology ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line technology), said Mr Ardagh, who is also a Dublin city councillor.

Leap Broadband recently raised €2 million from its existing investors - which include former Chorus executive Mr Bart Bonsall and former Ashbourne Communications executive Mr John McCarren - to help fund the initial roll out of the new service.

Leap Broadband will continue to offer wireless broadband services as well as the new ADSL and SDSL services, said Mr Ardagh.