The Republic has the second lowest penetration of high-speed internet connections in the European Union, a new survey shows.A new technology scorecard released this week by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association shows just 997 digital subscriber (DSL) lines have been installed by Eircom.

Digital subscriber line technology enables businesses and households to connect to the internet at speeds up to 30 times faster than regular dial-up internet. It is considered a vital technology to increase the competitiveness of the Republic as an e-commerce hub and promote investment by foreign multinationals.

The results rank the Republic behind every other European Union state except Greece, and well blow the EU average. The number of DSL connections in Europe is currently six million.

The survey also found that the Republic had just 1,500 high-speed cable internet connections ranking us above just Luxembourg, although figures were unavailable for Italy and Germany.

Germany had the highest number of DSL lines with a total of 2.6 million, well ahead of the second-placed State, France which has almost 700,000 lines.

The UK, where the low level of DSL lines recently became a major political issue, has just 290,600 DSL lines.

Alternative operators - telecoms firms that do not own the local telecoms networks - provide on average just 3 per cent of all DSL connections, the survey found.

The European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), a group representing alternative operators, said the results showed the process of local loop unbundling - opening telecoms networks to competitors - is moving too slowly.

Mr Phil Evans, managing director of ECTA, said just three per cent of the DSL connections in Europe were over unbundled telecoms networks.

Of the remainder, incumbent operators were selling 80-90 per cent of connections.

(The full survey can be accessed at www.ectaportal.com)