•euNetworks has launched a 1,057km Alpine fibre route between Paris and Milan, the shortest direct path between the two cities
•Alpine corridor expands European long-haul diversity as operators add physical routes alongside capacity upgrades
The fact
euNetworks has launched a 1,057km long-haul fibre route linking Paris and Milan through the Alps. The company said it is the shortest direct path between the two cities, providing an alternative to existing coastal corridors via Lyon and Marseille.
The route connects directly into euNetworks' metro fibre networks in Paris and Milan, which serve 38 and 18 on-net data centres respectively. It extends the company's Frankfurt–Milan route launched in October 2025, creating shorter cumulative connections across the three cities.
The assessment
The new corridor shifts the focus of European long-haul fibre from bandwidth expansion to route diversity. Rather than adding more capacity on existing coastal paths, euNetworks has opened an Alpine alternative that reduces single-path dependency between Paris and Milan. For BTW readers, physical diversity matters because the 38 Paris and 18 Milan on-net data centres served by this route increasingly host AI workloads that require resilient interconnection. New physical corridors signal how operators are treating route geography as a selling point alongside latency and capacity.
What to watch
Watch for capacity sales on the Paris–Milan Alpine route and whether euNetworks extends this Alpine corridor strategy to other European city pairs, particularly routes currently dependent on single coastal paths.