Italy Beats Almost All of Europe on Fixed Network Performance: Here's Who Is Ahead
The nPerf observatory has published data on fixed internet connections collected between January and May 2026, placing Italy in the second position for download speed among territories with a per capita GDP comparable to Belgium, ranging from $28,000 to $112,000. Our country recorded an average speed of 266.6 Mbps, positioning itself just behind Belgium, which leads the group of 20 analyzed countries with an average of 277 Mbps.
Field reports show a European landscape characterized by significant gaps in the time required for data transfer, with Italy managing to surpass most of the major continental economies. The gap between the top two positions in the ranking translates into a handful of seconds during daily use: to download a single 5 GB file, Belgian users take about 30 seconds less than their Italian counterparts. The situation changes when the comparison is made with other countries in the sample. Italy’s 266.6 Mbps allows it to outpace Ireland, which holds the third position at 236.1 Mbps, with a lead of 30 Mbps. This performance difference allows users to complete the download of a 25 GB 4K video file approximately 2 minutes faster on Italian lines.
According to nPerf, Italy is second in Europe for fixed network performance. Sweden occupies the fifth position in the panel with an average value of 224.1 Mbps, experiencing a delay of 42 Mbps compared to the performance recorded in Italy, meaning an additional 1 minute and 40 seconds to perform the same operation on a 25 GB file. Examining the data from the remaining countries with similar income, Italian infrastructure shows superior performance compared to 18 of the 20 selected countries in the nPerf report.
Denmark is at an average of 220 Mbps, closely followed by the United Kingdom with 219.5 Mbps. The gap becomes pronounced when it comes to Germany, where the measured speed is 167.8 Mbps, almost 100 Mbps less than the Italian figure. In everyday activity, these asymmetries affect the quick access to content: downloading a 10 GB software update requires an additional wait of 1 minute and 30 seconds in Germany compared to Italy. The gap widens further when looking at Estonia, which is at the bottom of the ranking with 127.6 Mbps, where the time disadvantage for the same 10 GB file reaches up to 3 minutes.
The overall picture from the sample highlights a generally uniform trend for countries within this specific wealth range. The maximum performance gap, that is, the difference between Belgium's 277 Mbps and Estonia's 127.6 Mbps, is 149.4 Mbps. This distance translates to an additional waiting time of 12 minutes to complete the download of a 50 GB video game. Italy's position ranks less than 5% behind the top of the group and exceeds the overall average speed of the entire sample, calculated at 195 Mbps, by 36%.
The availability of such bandwidth ensures the smooth handling of heavy activities like cloud backups, streaming 8K video flows, or video conferencing sessions with multiple users simultaneously. In the Italian home context, the recorded average speed allows for the simultaneous operation of 10 4K video streams without saturating the line. The capacity for concurrent management reduces to 7 streams for average connections in Germany and drops to 5 streams for fixed lines in Estonia.
The data refers to nPerf measurements taken between January and May 2026 within a sample of 20 countries with a per capita GDP ranging from $28,000 to $112,000.