The Republic's telecommunications industry is ranked four out of 10 in Europe in terms of its progress in liberalising the telecoms market.

A study, which compared the regulation and liberalisation processes in 10 European countries, was carried out by British Telecom and its allied companies throughout Europe. In the Irish market, this includes Ocean, a joint venture between BT and ESB.

A similar study, carried out last September before the State market was deregulated, rated the Republic ninth out of the 10 countries surveyed.

The latest report found that good progress had been made in the Republic in putting key regulatory building blocks in place in a short time to meet the December 1st deregulation deadline.

The market that had made the most progress toward full liberalisation was Britain, followed by the Netherlands and Germany. The Republic was ranked fourth, along with France, followed by Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Italy and Spain.

In terms of the market's regulation, the Republic scored 18 out of 25 compared to a European average of 16 out of 25. The other categories included: fair interconnection, where the Republic's score of 16 out of 25 was in line with the average; infrastructure competition, where the score at 18 out of 25, was below the average of 19 out of 25; and non-discrimination, where the Republic scored 13 out of 25, again the same as the average.