Agents Week: network performance update (opens in new tab)
Cloudflare reports that it became the fastest network in 60% of the world’s 1,000 largest networks by December 2025, up from 40% during Birthday Week 2025. The improvement came from both expanding its global points of presence and optimizing connection-handling software. Cloudflare says it is continuing to target the remaining networks where competitors still lead. ### Measuring Network Performance - Cloudflare analyzes the 1,000 largest networks by estimated population, using APNIC data. - It measures TCP connection time—the time required to complete a TCP handshake—as a practical indicator of users’ perceived Internet speed. - Rankings use the **trimean**, a weighted average of the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile, reducing the influence of outliers. - Data comes from Real User Measurements: browsers loading Cloudflare error pages silently download small files from Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, Google, Fastly, and Akamai under real network conditions. ### Expanding Points of Presence - New locations in Constantine, Algeria; Malang, Indonesia; and Wroclaw, Poland brought Cloudflare physically closer to users. - In Wroclaw, free-user average round-trip time fell from 19 ms to 12 ms, a 40% improvement. - In Malang, Enterprise traffic improved from 39 ms to 37 ms, a 5% reduction. - However, new locations alone did not account for the increase from 40% to 60% of networks. ### Improving Connection Handling - Cloudflare optimized the software responsible for connection establishment, SSL/TLS termination, traffic management, and proxying. - HTTP/3 adoption and changes to congestion-window management reduced processing time. - Improvements in CPU and memory efficiency allow the global network to handle connections more effectively. - Cloudflare compares this to improving both the efficiency of highway toll booths and the routing of traffic between them. ### Results by December 2025 - Cloudflare was the fastest provider in 60% of the largest networks. - Between September and December 2025, it became fastest in: - 40 additional countries - 261 additional networks - 54 additional U.S. autonomous systems (ASNs) - During December, Cloudflare was on average 6 ms faster than the next-fastest provider. Cloudflare’s conclusion is that continued gains in network reach and software efficiency can produce measurable improvements for users. It plans to focus on the remaining networks where it is narrowly behind competitors, with the long-term goal of being fastest worldwide.