Once is not custom, it is to Free that returns the palm of the most efficient operator on the fixed Internet. The title, awarded by the nPerf institute at the end of its 2021 barometer, salutes the work done by Xavier Niel’s operator to get back in line with his competitors and – even better – overtake them to win at the top of the rankings. of the operators having offered the best fixed speeds during the past year.
“Free is finally crowned the single-handed winner of our study, thanks in particular to tremendous improvements in speeds”, indicates the company specializing in speed measurement in the latest edition of its annual fixed Internet barometer. For the latter, “the technical efforts of recent years, and certain attractive commercial offers are probably at the origin of this success”.
The first victim of this acceleration, Orange “ends up giving up its usual first place on the fixed Internet, in mainland France and Corsica, all technologies combined”. However, the incumbent operator still records a “significant improvement”, like Bouygues Telecom and SFR, which follow by recording progress in the quality of their speeds.
Canon Downflows
Free’s progress is reflected in figures, with the latter imposing itself in 2021 as the operator delivering the best download speed with an overall average speed of 225.38 Mb/s. a large Orange head and its average speed of 179.32 Mb/s, but also Bouygues Telecom (178.84 Mb/s) and SFR (162.57 Mb/s).
However, the latter have not given up and continue to make enormous progress in terms of their speeds. “The competition is not giving up, as shown by its significant efforts, for example + 60 Mb / s for Bouygues Telecom, and + 44 Mb / s approximately for Orange and SFR”, argues nPerf.
While FttH now accounts for more than half of very high-speed subscriptions taken out in France, it is on this technology that Free’s success is based. In 2021, the operator recorded a download speed in FttH of around 556.76 Mb/s, far ahead of Bouygues Telecom (440.09 Mb/s), SFR (437.16 Mb/s) and Orange (418. 07 Mbps).
The fiber does the job
All operators combined, nPerf notes a sharp increase in download speeds recorded in 2021. “In 2021, the French surfed with an average download speed of 191 Mb/s, against 133 Mb/s in 2020”, indicates company, which underlines “an even stronger increase than the previous year”, namely + 44%. And to note that in two years, this increase amounted to + 94%.
With regard to upstream speeds, these have experienced “a dazzling acceleration of + 50% over the year 2021, or even + 120% in two years”. For nPerf, the reasons for this qualitative increase are largely due to the generalization of fiber in the territory and its gradual adoption by the general public. “The shift to fiber optic offers continues, and the 10 Gb/s lines obviously contribute to this impressive increase in speed,” notes the company.
As a reminder, France had 16.6 million very high speed subscriptions as of June 30, 2021, i.e. 54% of the total number of high speed and very high speed internet subscriptions on French territory, a percentage up by 12 points. over a year.