As a connecting point between Western and Eastern Europe, Poland stands in an ideal location at the heart of the content. That potentially makes the country an increasingly attractive gateway to hyperscalers, tier-one networks and other international players for additional connectivity between regions.

At the same time, domestic players and businesses are demanding high quality local access closer to users. In light of this, Poland has seen a significant rise in fibre penetration in recent years, aided by EU funding. This is reflected in very-high-capacity network coverage reportedly reaching more than 80% of households in 2024, slightly higher than the EU average.

Yet there is still room for improvement, with white spots in coverage and ageing infrastructure that would benefit from being updated or replaced.

“Coverage is quite nice, but it’s fragmented,” says Kamil Szczepański, head of the international wholesale business at Orange Polska. “There are a lot of small players that have very local coverage over fibre that needs to be integrated at the national level. Longhaul fibre is also getting older, so there’s a risk that it will decrease in quality.”

He further cites the growth in interest in capacity from international players. “Demand for infrastructure is growing significantly because hyperscalers and other key players have come to Poland, considered as a hub to further extend and connect the country through the Baltic states to Finland, for example,” says Szczepański.

Groundwork begins
For those reasons, Orange Polska is getting under way with digging this quarter for the rollout of 763km of new fibre. The project, set for completion by the end of 2027, will see stretches of the network becoming available in phases once they are constructed.

Szczepański describes the network as being built in something akin to a star shape, with a section being rolled out from the German to Lithuanian border via Polish capital Warsaw, and southern legs stretching to the borders of Czechia and Slovakia. He adds that the updated network will have a capacity of 800G-plus, a much higher fibre count than infrastructure built in the past, and direct access to key data centres.

“While some access challenges have been solved in Poland with the use of earlier funds, the issue is the longhaul network,” says Szczepański. “Our aim is to build and provide further redundancy than what ourselves and other players have on the market, providing a network that’s different to what already exists.”

This is important for the likes of hyperscalers and tier-one players, which Szczepański points out prefer multiple routes out of a country to provide full security for their cloud, compute and IP transit assets. Reaching the borders will aid access onwards to other markets, he adds.

“The trend in Poland is that hyperscalers are starting to build their own data centre facilities, but once they build them, they will need either connectivity to the external world or the external world will need connectivity to them.”

Extending access
In addition, Poland acts as an access point for Ukraine during its ongoing war with Russia – meaning better connectivity will improve things for its neighbouring country now and in the future. “Ukraine invested in resiliency through connectivity to Poland because of what’s happening there,” says Szczepański. “Once the war is finished, demand for access to cloud, compute and content resources via Poland will receive a further boost.”

On top of that, Poland provides a convenient gateway to its smaller neighbours onward to Finland, and to Germany. “From the perspective of country-to-country connections, we’ll be very well-organised with the new network in addition to our existing assets,” says Szczepański.

But he emphasises that aside from growing international potential, it should not be forgotten what the new fibre will bring to domestic businesses. The combined ecosystem of local and wider players should lead to a richer overall community to support upcoming communications needs.

“With that fibre on the market, we will not only provide extra support for telecoms carriers, cloud players and ISPs from Western Europe, but also the local community to link to the wider Polish telco ecosystem,” says Szczepański. “We think this will be a game changer for the Polish dark fibre market.”