Italy Fixed Broadband Experience Report - February 2023

Andrey Popov and Francesco Rizzato

Opensignal has analyzed our users’ real-world data across Italy, nationally and also focusing on five cities. To reflect the varying way broadband is used, we analyze six different measures of the broadband user experience: Broadband Success Rate, Broadband Consistent Quality, Broadband Video Experience, Broadband Download Speed, Broadband Peak Download Speed and Broadband Upload Speed. For Broadband Consistent Quality, we compare user experience during all times of day, as well as during the peak hours between 5pm and 11pm.

Key findings

• TIM beats the competition across Italy for Broadband Consistent Quality, across both all hours of the day combined and during the peak hours of 5pm-11pm. Overall, 71.7% of our TIM users’ tests met the minimum recommended performance thresholds to watch HD video, complete group video conference calls and play games. 

• Fastweb and Vodafone tie as joint leaders in two national experience categories. For Broadband Video Experience they both score 73.9 points out of 100. While for Broadband Success Rate they also have statistically tied scores of 97.9-98%. 

• Nationally, WindTre is ahead in Broadband Download Speed, with users’ average download speed of 53Mbps. In second place are Vodafone and Fastweb with statistically tied speeds of 48.9-49.1Mbps. But Vodafone users see the fastest Broadband Upload Speed of 23.8Mbps.

• In Rome, Sky Wifi outperforms all operators for Broadband Consistent Quality, with 83.2% of user tests on its network passing minimum performance threshold requirements. However, in other cities the best experience was a tie: in Palermo Iliad and TIM are top; in Torino it is TIM and Tiscali; in Napoli TIM and Vodafone; while in Milano it is a three way tie between Sky Wifi, Tiscali and Vodafone. 

• In all the cities where Iliad is present, Iliad users see the fastest or joint fastest for all speeds metrics, including Broadband Download Speed, Broadband Peak Download Speed and Broadband Upload Speed.

• Iliad and Vodafone are featured among the leaders in the most comparisons made across the five cities. Their users have the best — or joint best — experience in 20 (83% of categories eligible) and 14 (47%) categories respectively.

• Users with fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connections observe significantly higher experience scores than users connecting with other broadband technologies. The uplift is particularly high for Broadband Consistent Quality, with FTTH users seeing an increase in the proportion of tests meeting threshold requirements of 16.8-33.8 percentage points, in the five cities.

 

Broadband experience at the national level

Italy’s broadband market is rapidly developing and modernizing. Its fast pace of fiber rollout is aided by wholesale arrangements between the national fiber infrastructure developers and the retail broadband providers. This allows operators to rely on the same shared fiber infrastructure to serve customers’ connections.

However, users’ real broadband experience differs across broadband providers because Opensignal tests the end-to-end service. In other words, Opensignal broadband tests measure everything between users’ devices and the Internet sites and content delivery networks that host typical apps, video streaming service and websites, not only the broadband connection in the street.

Opensignal data shows that the major national Internet Service Providersl (ISPs) across Italy – TIM, Fastweb, WindTre and Vodafone are largely even for Broadband Success Rate, a measure of user experience that tracks the proportion of successfully completed tests on the broadband connection. However, Vodafone and Fastweb take the top spot with statistically tied scores of 97.9-98% — just above WindTre’s and TIM’s tied scores of 97.6-97.8%.

Fastweb and Vodafone also share the top spot for Broadband Video Experience with identical scores of 73.9 points on a 100-point scale. The national providers all scored in a very similar range to one another – placing the experience of our Italian users on all ISPs analyzed in the Very Good (68-78) category.

TIM beats the competition for Broadband Consistent Quality, both on average during all hours of day, and during the peak hours. This measure of user experience tracks the proportion of tests on the network that met the minimum recommended performance threshold requirements for most common user applications. Our users on TIM’s network recorded 71.7%, with the score dropping to 69.8% for the peak hours (5pm-11pm).

WindTre is ahead of the competition for Broadband Download Speed, with users seeing an average speed of 53Mbps. Vodafone and Fastweb share second place, with statistically tied speeds of 48.9-49.1Mbps. TIM’s speed was slower at 44Mbps. For Broadband Peak Download Speed, Vodafone and WindTre share the top spot with statistically tied speeds of 364.2-373Mbps. For Broadband Upload Speed, Vodafone is the leader with its users seeing speeds of 23.8 Mbps, substantially faster than users connecting with last placed TIM with 15.6Mbps.

 

Broadband experience across cities

Across five of the biggest cities in Italy, we also included Tiscali, Iliad and Sky Wifi where we observed significant presence for those ISPs among our users.

Sky Wifi beats the competition for Broadband Consistent Quality in Rome, with 83.2% of user tests on its network meeting the minimum threshold requirements during the day on average, ahead of second-placed TIM’s 77.5%. 

Our Iliad users observe the best Broadband Peak Download Speed and Broadband Upload Speed in Rome, with peak download speed of 508.4Mbps and average upload speed of 58.2Mbps. Iliad is significantly ahead of its rivals for upload speed, while TIM users’ experience comes closely behind Iliad users for Broadband Peak Download Speed with 457.6Mbps. 

Sky Wifi and Tiscali tied for the best Broadband Video Experience in Rome, with statistically equivalent scores of 74.7-74.8 on a 100-point scale. While all included broadband providers in Rome achieved user experience in the Very Good (68-78) category.

In Milano, Tiscali and Iliad are best for Broadband Success Rate, with statistically tied scores of 98.3-99.3%, that represent the successful tests by our users on providers’ networks.

Tiscali, Sky Wifi and Vodafone have the highest score for Broadband Consistent Quality in Milano, with statistically tied results of 78.1-82.2% — the percentage of tests among our users that meet the minimum performance threshold requirements.

No ISP users have faster network speeds than Iliad users in Milano, as it ties for first place for Broadband Download Speed, Broadband Peak Download Speed and Broadband Upload Speed.

Iliad and Sky Wifi come top for Broadband Download Speed in Milano, where our users recorded statistically equivalent average download speeds of 139.3-153Mbps on those providers. This is significantly ahead of the competition – as Vodafone and WindTre follow at a distance with tied scores of 110.4-115.3Mbps. 

Vodafone and Iliad users have the fastest Broadband Peak Download Speed in Milano, with statistically equivalent estimated peak speeds of 560.3-624.3Mbps.

TIM and Vodafone tie for top place in Napoli for Broadband Consistent Quality, with statistically equivalent scores of 75.4-77.2% across all hours of the day. The score represents the proportion of tests run by our users that met the minimum performance threshold requirements. 

No ISP users have faster network speeds than Vodafone users in Napoli, for Broadband Download Speed and Broadband Peak Download Speed, where Vodafone ties for first place. Vodafone users also have the fastest Broadband Upload Speed in Napoli, with average upload speeds of 60.4Mbps. 

Vodafone and WindTre tie for the fastest Broadband Peak Download Speed score in Napoli, with users experiencing statistically equivalent peak speeds of 513.6-564Mbps.

Vodafone and Fastweb statistically tie for the best Broadband Video Experience in Napoli, with scores of 74.4-74.5 on a 100-point scale. 

Tiscali and Iliad tie for the leading score for Broadband Success Rate in Torino, achieving statistically equivalent scores of 98.4-99.7%. The score represents the proportion of successful tests run by our users on providers’ networks. 

TIM and Tiscali have the highest score for Broadband Consistent Quality in Torino, with statistically tied results of 82.8-83.6% — the percentage of tests among our users on their networks that meet the minimum performance threshold requirements.

No ISP users have faster network speeds than Iliad in Torino, for Broadband Peak Download Speed. Iliad has the highest scores for Broadband Download Speed and Download Upload Speed in Torino, with our Iliad users observing average download speeds of 145.3Mbps by our users, and upload speeds of 101.2Mbps.

Vodafone is in a tie with Iliad for the fastest Broadband Peak Download Speed in Torino, measuring statistically equivalent estimated peak speeds of 556.8-638.6Mbps by our users.

TIM and Iliad tie for the best Broadband Consistent Quality score in Palermo, with 71.5-76.1% of our users’ tests meeting the minimum performance threshold requirements on these networks during all hours of the day combined.

Vodafone, Fastweb, TIM and Iliad tie for the lead in Broadband Video Experience in Palermo. Our users observe statistically equivalent experience scores of 74.1-74.2 out of 100. All five providers recorded user experience that placed them in the Very Good (68-78) category.

Iliad users have the fastest average speeds in Palermo, with Broadband Download Speed measuring at 126.5Mbps as recorded by our users, and Broadband Upload Speed of 89.7Mbps.

Vodafone is in a tie with Iliad for the fastest Broadband Peak Download Speed in Palermo, measuring statistically equivalent peak speeds of 504.6-510.7Mbps by our users.
 

How fiber (FTTH) improves the broadband experience

With FTTH connections our users see significantly better broadband experience scores across all categories. compared with users connecting with other broadband technologies. Other than FTTH, such broadband technologies may include fiber-to-the-cabinet/node (FTTC/FTTN), G.fast, ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line), very high speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) as well as fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband connections using 5G or 4G.

Broadband Download Speed scores increase dramatically for the segment of customers on FTTH, by a factor in the range of 2-2.8 times compared to other technologies. This jump with fiber is the greatest in Milano. Our users saw the largest uplift between FTTH and non-FTTH connections with Broadband Upload Speed, which increased by 2.7-4.5 times for those on FTTH broadband. Users see the largest uplift again in Milano.

Broadband Consistent Quality is much higher for our users on FTTH connections, 16.8-33.8 percentage points greater than the scores reported by users on non-FTTH connections. Our FTTH users observe an uplift of 29.5 percentage points or more in all cities apart from Napoli, with Milano seeing the highest uplift in the metric.

With fiber, Broadband Success Rate also improves substantially across a number of cities. The proportion of successful tests increased by between 1.8-3.1 percentage points for users on FTTH connections in Rome, Napoli and Palermo. This indicates that FTTH connections are significantly more reliable for our users in those cities. The difference was only 1.3 percentage points in Torino, while Milano observed no statistically significant uplift in proportion of successful tests among our users on FTTH.

The uplift for users on FTTH connections was also statistically significant for Broadband Video Experience, but the experience improved by a smaller amount (1-2.3%) compared with Broadband Success Rate. This indicates that non-FTTH connections were largely sufficient for our users to have a Very Good (68-78) experience, but FTTH users are closer to reaching the Excellent (78 or above) category.

 

Fiber is a key part of the broadband mix in Italy

Opensignal has analyzed the FTTH experience separately from other broadband technologies because of the importance of fiber across the country. According to the latest figures from regulator AGCOM, Italy had 3.26 million fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) access lines in September 2022. The large majority of those connections, 85.9%, are nearly evenly split between the four major national internet service providers (ISPs) – TIM, Fastweb, WindTre and Vodafone. Sky Italia and Iliad have accumulated a significant number of FTTH customers since their entry, with 7.7% share of total FTTH connections in Italy now attributed to the two providers. Iliad only entered the broadband market recently at the start of 2022, and provides only FTTH connections, while Sky Italia started two years earlier mid-2020 and offers both FTTH and fiber-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connections. Note, we do not class FTTC as “fiber” because the service continues to use a copper telephone line and offers a much lower quality of experience than FTTH.

FTTC continues to account for the largest share of connections in Italy today. At 10.35 million access lines as of September 2022 according to AGCOM, TIM accounts for the largest share of 41.7% of those connections. The remainder of the FTTC access lines are again almost evenly split between Vodafone, WindTre and Fastweb, with Sky Italia more than doubling its market share over the previous year to account for 2.6% of FTTC connections in Italy.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) accounts for an additional 1.75 million access lines in the country as of September 2022, with substantial efforts to bring 5G FWA to the market by a number of providers – those include Linkem (now part of Tiscali), Vodafone, and Fastweb. 

 

Methodology and definitions

Broadband Success Rate

Measures the average proportion of successfully completed tests relative to all the tests executed for each unique Wifi network on each broadband provider.

Broadband Consistent Quality

Measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements, using six key performance indicators including download and upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss and time to first byte. Metrics are represented as a percentage of users’ tests that have met the minimum recommended performance thresholds to watch HD video, complete group video conference calls and play games. 

• Average — Consistent quality is measured across all users in all hours of the day. 

• Peak — By analyzing all tests, across all carriers nationally we can see that on average the 6 hour period between 5pm and 11pm is the busiest. In these areas we see the highest amount of device activity and the largest drops in users’ experience relative to the 24 hour average. We have selected these afternoon hours to benchmark a ‘peak experience’. 

Broadband Video Experience

Opensignal’s adaptive video experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's network. The metric measures users’ adaptive video experience using a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) approach inspired by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters of adaptive bitrate video streaming and the perceived video experience as reported by real people.

Video Experience scores account for adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), a technology that allows Opensignal to accurately represent users’ real-world video experience including streaming resolutions as high as 4K quality.

Broadband Download Speed

Measured in Mbps, Broadband Download Speed represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across a service provider’s network.

Broadband Peak Download Speed

Measured in Mbps, Broadband Peak Download Speed represents the 98th percentile of the user speed distribution. i.e. this is what the users with the highest speeds within the footprint experience.

Broadband Upload Speed

Measured in Mbps, Broadband Upload Speed measures the average upload speeds for each internet service provider observed by our users across their fixed networks. Typically, upload speeds are slower than download speeds but this often depends on the technology used for broadband connections.

FTTH vs. other connection types

Opensignal uses a proprietary algorithm that utilizes the average upload speed and latency for each measured (Basic Service Set Identifier) BSSID compared against physical characteristics of fiber and against the reference performance for the area. Connections are categorized as FTTH or other where other refers to all connection types including FTTC, Cable, xDSL and FWA.