Telecommunications investments that will be co-financed by the EFDD and the NRP will complete access to very fast internet for almost all households in Poland.

We want every home, every school, every citizen in Poland to have access to high-speed Internet - with a capacity of at least 300 Mbps

- said Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy, Grzegorz Puda at a conference at the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy, attended by the Minister of Digital Affairs, Janusz Cieszynski.

Minister Puda stressed that in the contemporary reality, access to high-speed internet is crucial. It allows us to work remotely, study, do shopping, do official business or even access medical facilities.

We want to make this kind of internet available also in smaller towns, scattered villages, address points very distant from other buildings. And it is for the residents of these places that we are launching today a competition of enormous extent.  We will implement investments of more than PLN 7 billion with EU funding under this programme. Money for this purpose will come from two sources - the 2021-2027 European Funds for Digital Development (EFDD) Programme and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRP)

- Minister G. Puda informed.

In this way, access to very high-speed internet will cover almost all households in Poland - more than 1.7 million of them will receive internet access of at least 300 Mbps. Support will also be addressed to businesses and places of importance for socio-economic development, such as healthcare entities.

High-speed internet all over Poland

The aim of the competition announced is to provide access to high-speed internet for all homes and businesses in Poland that have so far had no possibility to use a fibre-optic connection.

We refer to areas where there was no access to high-speed network at all

- emphasised the Minister of Digital Affairs, Janusz Cieszyński.

An important element of assumptions of the competition is to extend the coverage of the high-speed network to entities such as schools, health care facilities and administration offices. The condition for these entities to be covered by the support is that they have not had access to high-speed internet to date - Minister Cieszyński added.

Competitions for network construction are launched

In order to ensure that all Polish residents can connect to the high-speed network, we are raising funds from two funding sources: The European Funds for Digital Development 2021-2027 (EFDD) programme and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRP).

For the purposes of the competitions, Poland has been divided into 402 competition areas:

• 152 areas under the EFDD - 675 thousand households will gain access to high-speed internet;
• 250 areas under the NRP - 1050 thousand households will gain access to high-speed internet.

Operational Programme Digital Poland 2014-2020

The announced investment a a follow-up of the objectives from the Digital Poland 2014-2020 Programme, which runs until the end of 2023. OPDP has also contributed to the implementation of the National Education Network programme, thanks to which virtually all schools in Poland have access to high-speed, secure and free internet.

Thanks to the support from the Digital Poland Programme 2014-2020, by the end of 2023, more than 2 million households and more than 11 thousand schools will have access to broadband internet.

The result of all these digital programmes will be the access to high-speed internet for virtually every citizen, student or entrepreneur

- said the Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy.