Agents Week: network performance update
Key Points
- Fastest in 60% of top 1,000 networks
- Average 6ms lead vs next provider in December
- Gains from PoPs + software (HTTP/3, congestion)
Summary
Cloudflare reports a network performance increase: by December 2025 it was the fastest provider in 60% of the top 1,000 networks (up from 40% in September 2025). Measurements use Real User Measurements (RUM) from browsers and rank networks by the trimean of connection times across APNIC’s top 1,000 networks. Improvements came from new points of presence (PoPs) and software-level connection optimizations (HTTP/3, congestion window tuning, CPU/memory improvements in connection handling, TLS termination and proxy code).
Key Points
- Measurement method: RUM speed-tests on Cloudflare-branded error pages; metric = trimean of connection times (Q1, median, Q3).
- Coverage: top 1,000 networks by estimated population (APNIC data) to represent real-user experience.
- Results: fastest in 60% of top networks by Dec 2025; +40 countries and +261 networks since Sept 2025; +54 ASNs in the US; ~6ms average lead vs next provider in December.
- PoP impact examples: Wroclaw reduced free-user RTT from 19ms→12ms (≈40%); Malang improved Enterprise RTT 39ms→37ms (≈5%).
- Software optimizations: HTTP/3 adoption, congestion window and connection-handling changes, reduced CPU/memory per-connection to lower processing time at edge.
- Engineering takeaways: measure connection time trimean in production RUM, balance edge density with efficient connection software, monitor RTT and per-ASN performance to prioritize PoP or code improvements.
Actionable suggestions for engineers
- Add or validate RUM instrumentation that captures connection times and compute trimean for target ASNs.
- Prioritize both PoP deployments and software optimizations (connection-path, TLS, proxy) where trimean gaps are smallest to get disproportionate gains.
- Track per-country and per-ASN latency deltas vs competitors to focus fixes that move you from #2 to #1 with small millisecond wins.