According to the annual nPerf barometer, Free Mobile’s speeds are lower than those of its three rivals: Orange, SFR and Bouygues Télécom. Xavier Niel’s operator is behind the others, which offer a similar experience.
If you thought Free Mobile’s network problems were over, wait until you discover the results of nPerf’s annual barometer. Like every year, the flow test service publishes its mobile internet performance reportwith a new winner in 2024. Indeed, SFR takes first place, while it was dominated by Orange and Bouygues in 2023. We also notice that Orange moves to third place, even if the results of the three historical operators are very close.
Free Mobile, big loser in the nPerf barometer
The nPerf comparison is based on measurements from individuals who carry out flow tests. It is therefore not a question of a scientific methodology with professional testers sent to all corners of France, because we can imagine that the majority of testers are in large cities. In any case, with several tens of thousands of tests carried out every year, nPerf nevertheless relies on a large amount of data.
To give a score to each operator, nPerf compares criteria:
- The average downstream flow,
- The average upstream flow,
- Latency,
- A browsing test (a measurement of the time to load the 5 most popular sites in France),
- A streaming test, to upload a video to YouTube.
nPerf indicates that 30% of tests are carried out by Orange subscribers, 30% by Free users, 22% by Bouygues subscribers and 18% by SFR users.
According to nPerf’s measurements, Free Mobile is behind the others in all categories:
- Son downflow average is 102.56 Mb/s, which puts it just below Bouygues (105.60 Mb/s). SFR (123.79 Mb/s) and Orange (129.69 Mb/s) are far ahead. Orange is also the only constant operator, with speeds as good during busy hours as during off-peak hours.
- The flow rate of Free Mobile is weak 61% of the time, while it is between 52 and 54% of the time among its competitors. With an average score of 12.36 Mb/s, compared to 15-16 Mb/s among competitors, Free Mobile is below the others.
- In latency also, Free takes longer to respond. Its results are very rarely excellent (30%), while the others have significantly better results (between 51 and 63%). On average, Free Mobile takes 39.75 ms to respond to nPerf servers. Orange is in third position (35.87 ms), behind SFR (31.44 ms) and Bouygues (29.87 ms).
Also in application tests, Free is behind its competitors. The loading time of pages web is good 73% of the time everywhere, except at Free (69%). On YouTubeincumbents are fast 84% of the time. Free is at 80%. There is nothing really serious, but nPerf tests observe shrinkage.
In 5G too, Free Mobile is behind the competition
What about 5G specifically? Here again, despite a very large number of antennas, Free is paying for its initial choices: it preferred to recycle 700 MHz antennas, rather than install the latest generation 3.5 GHz antennas.
Free Mobile’s download speeds are close to those of Bouygues (181.74 Mb/s compared to 195.92 Mb/s), but far behind those of Orange (283.25 Mb/s) and SFR (248.11 Mb/s). /s). On everything else, Free Mobile is still in fourth place. Could the upcoming arrival of 5G SA change the situation?
Even if nPerf proclaims SFR the big winner in its annual barometer, the detailed data often puts Orange in first position, particularly in terms of the stability of its network, the download speed and the quality of its 5G network.
In any case, SFR and Orange are the two big winners from the publication of this ranking. Free Mobile once again appears to be the worst network in France. There remains an indisputable truth: the best network is the one that you receive best. National flow tests will have little influence on your daily life.
Source: www.numerama.com
