In which city is the internet fastest? Which operator to choose? nPerf updates its barometer

If you live in a city, you can expect your operator to be faster than in the countryside, for example. And yet…

The advantage with nPerf and its recently updated barometer is that you can easily find the fastest operator according to your city, thanks to an analysis covering the period between October 2021 and September 2022.

Orange is still in the lead in terms of nPoints and download speeds

nPerf is particularly known for allowing you to test the quality of your internet connection yourself. But that’s not all. The firm also offers various barometers to find the most efficient mobile operator. And to define this, nPerf offers a very precise protocol with, over the period between October 2021 and September 2022, nearly 430,000 tests carried out from multiple smartphones and tablets connected in 4G and 5G. On the finish line, Orange is, like last year, at the top of the nPerf barometer, with first place in terms of points collected in 10 of the 15 cities tested. SFR is second, with 4 agglomerations in its pocket, ahead of Bouygues which has the only agglomeration of Grenoble, while Free has not won any.

In more detail, Orange gleans a total of 103,345 nPoints, ahead of Bouygues and its 99,106 nPoints which dominate SFR by a short header, third with 98,163 nPoints. Free brings up the rear of the operators tested with 87,459 nPoints. This new ranking is finally quite upset, because last year, Free was the runner-up to Orange, ahead of Bouygues and SFR.

Orange also won the championship against Bouygues, Free and SFR in terms of download speeds, again in 10 cities out of the 15 tested. Orange is also the only operator to offer speeds that exceed 170 Mb/s, and this, in Avignon, Bordeaux, Lille and Strasbourg. 3 conurbations see SFR win, namely Marseille-Aix, Lyon and Nice-Cannes-Antibes, while Bouygues is first in Grenoble. Free, he dominates the competition in Nantes by a short head, a city where the downlink speeds are the most homogeneous (but not the highest for all that).

According to nPerf, Lille is (still) the best connected city

If the number of points in the operators’ final ranking has increased sharply since last year, it is in particular because none of the 15 agglomerations tested has average speeds less than or equal to 100 Mb/s in 2022 in these 4 operators, while in 2021, none exceeded 100 Mb/s (!). The deployment of 5G is one of the factors considered. In fact, as nPerf points out, Lille is again in the lead, but exceeds 100,000 nPerf points for the first time thanks to excellent results in areas other than average download speed, for example in streaming.

Winner of the 2019 and 2020 editions after a heavy fall in 9^e place in 2021, Strasbourg is in 2^e place in the nPerf points classification in 2022 (99,857 points), ahead of Bordeaux (99,412 points). If the first 7 stand in just 5,000 points, the gap widens in the second part of the ranking. Thus, Toulon brings up the rear with a deficit of 10,000 points (!) over Lille.

As for the downflow, behind the untouchable Lille, are Avignon (9^e in the nPerf points classification) and Bordeaux. The gap between Lille residents (144 Mb/s on average) and Rouennais (103 Mb/s) remains immense. Finally, if Lyon is 4^e with its nPerf points, none of the first 3 agglomerations in terms of the number of inhabitants to have been tested, including Marseille-Aix and Paris, appears on the two podiums dedicated to agglomerations.

Sources: Press release