ISP Shell Energy Broadband Launch New UK WiFi 6 Router
Customers of broadband and energy provider Shell Energy may like to know that the ISP, despite recently being placed up for SALE by its parent (here), has still found time to introduce a new Wi-Fi 6 capable router that is made (casing) from 100% recycled plastics. A Wi-Fi6 capable signal booster device is also being planned.
The router’s main core board is based off Broadcom’s 1.5GHz multi-core CPU (BCM63178), while its DSL chipset uses the BCM6303. As for WiFi, it’s using the more modern BCM6715 to deliver 802.11ax Release 2 performance (Wi-Fi 6) and up to WPA3 encryption is also supported. On top of that, the board includes 512MB of DDR3 RAM and 515MB of Flash NAND memory.
The device itself includes a WPS button, 1 x RJ11 DSL port (VDSL2/FTTC), 4 x Gigabit LAN ports and 1 x Gigabit LAN port. The router also boasts 1 x BS6312 (British phone socket) and 1 x USB 2.0 port, but both are listed as “not currently supported“. The router also supports guest WiFi networks and “intelligent Wi-Fi technology“, although this is probably much the same as most modern WiFi routers.
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Shell Energy has also hinted at the future launch of a new “Shell Energy Wi-Fi 6 booster” device (mesh networking?), although they’ve yet to say exactly when this will launch or how much it might cost. At the time of writing, it’s unclear whether this router is being provided alongside new orders for all packages or only certain ones. We also don’t know whether or when existing customers will be able to upgrade to it – possibly at an extra cost.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Shame they’re not 2.5G ports at least, considering wifi 6 is capable of over 1gb/s
I doubt many people using shell broadband are really bothered about 2.5Gb.s Ethernet, I presume that is what you mean. Shell is a budget provider. But they do need to improve their router because the one they supply is pretty naff. it works ok for basic stuff as long as you are not too far away from it, but it doesn’t like walls.
It seems like no one wants to buy Shell, Shame really because it is not a bad service at all, from what I have seen of it. My brother uses Shell and it works fine for him.
No one wants to buy them because the business certainly won’t be able to keep the Shell brand (for what its worth) for very long, and more importantly they’re a budget provider (ie low margins, ready-to-switch customers). So all you’d get is a pile of disloyal customers, disaffected staff, clunky cheap systems that the buyer would not want, but would need to integrate the massive customer database to their own systems, and probably a load of onerous supplier contracts and lease obligations. Why pay for that when the business is being run down?
Even if a buyer believes there’s value in the budget customers, Talktalk have a lot more, and they’re for sale too. Which tells us that at the low end of the market it’s exceptionally difficult to make money even with millions of customers. This of course has nothing to do with altnets, it’s simply that people like Now/Sky, Plusnet and VM can afford to offer low speed, low price deals because that’s only a small part of their customer base. So they can price at a marginally profitable rate. For true budget providers they can’t be profitable at the marginal price for those other companies as their entire customer base are highly price sensitive, and don’t have the sort of upsell or tie-in that the likes of Sky and VM can use.
Of course, there’s always somebody believes where there’s muck there’s brass, and eventually both Shell and TT are likely to lower the price to the point where some fool rushes in. But the fact that TT had to de-list and go private, and that’s not worked and the private equity interests are breaking it all up shows that everything has been tried and nothing worked. Can’t see data for Shell, for TT their ARPU was £23.58 back in 2021 – at that price it’s very, very difficult to run any large customer service business, arguably impossible when you factor in the inevitable bad debt costs. But because of the type of customers that are attracted, if they put the prices up they leave.
The only way of making money at those prices is to do something fundamentally and radically different (such as abandoning all real time telephone customer service or real time online chat) which I suspect would not be permitted within Ofcom’s General Conditions.
The new Shell router came with my 1 year FTC contract in December 2023. It is the best router I have used, better than Vodafone’s current offering. The signal is much stronger throughout the house, and is completely consistent day after day. Most of my connected devices use older wifi standards, but I have a new laptop that connects using wifi 6 and the most recent Firestick capable of wifi 6e. Both of these connect faultlessly despite around 10 other devices connecting to the router.
The only disappointment is that the ‘landline’ phone connector on the router does not operate.
Thoroughly recommended.
Typo: 802.11ac Release 2 should read 802.11ax.
Corrected, thanks.
Regarding availability – currently only for new provisions on FTTC & FTTP packages from 14th of August (excluding the social tariffs, and G.fast). Fault replacements will be from the existing router stocks.
Customers looking to recontract will also not be currently eligible for these, but will become available to ‘select’ customers upgrading to FTTC and FTTP (again, excluding G.fast) ‘at a later date’.
Looks like the BCM6715 is capable of broadcasting on 6GHz, any idea if this will be possible with Shell’s new router? (I guess not because it’s being advertised as WiFi 6 and not WiFi 6E, but…)
So far as I can tell, they’ve only enabled it for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.
That’s a shame – 6GHz won’t be saddled with the unhelpfully sensitive DFS system that hobbles 5 GHz use for a very large number of UK residents. I’m roughly twenty odd miles from the nearest airport and a similar distance from the nearest weather radar, yet still find DFS interferes with manually selected wifi channels. If my experience is representative, that’s a large chunk of the UK population unable to fully use 5 GHz.
It’s a shame that you can’t be ok with exiting customers you never reply to phone calls or emails you said to me that we were imagining that you told me that after a simple mistake you cocked up by not fixing us with our broadband router it was not put in and you said to me that I was to get it I said where from and you told me a company and you would pay the loan money that’s where the fun begins we sent the invoice to you you deny saying it to us it’s 149.88 and 100.00 compensation for problems about not providing it and now you say you never told me you never said that and the best of if was because you are to busy to look into the phone call so I don’t know where to go but then I am mad about how a huge company like shell would even doubt that i was lying but I am going to get it in court if necessary
Jane. You need to take basic English languages classes. Not one full stop or comma!
language that is lol!
Dear Jane – I hope your problem with Shell Energy gets resolved, but as a friendly warning, you need to be careful with how you conduct your life as you seem vulnerable to being taken advantage of by the wrong sort of people.
If Shell forgot to install the router, your internet would not be working at all and you would have been within your rights to insist they return with the correct router, or you would have fair grounds to cancel and move to one of many other ISPs.
Under no circumnstances would I expect any company to instruct a non-technical customer to go out and purchase their own equipment (which you should know also sounds incredibly expensive) with the promise of reimbursing them. If Shell did really do this, that should ring alarms bells about the quality of customer service you could expect to receive and you should have said no.
If something like that happens in future, you need to think carefully about how to proceed:
Does this sound like a normal request?
Have you heard of family or friends ever having to do this sort of thing?
Do you understand enough about what they are asking to buy the right thing?
Does it sound like normal behaviour, or is there a possibility somebody is getting you to spend extra money on something with a ‘promise’ to pay you even more.
Please, if you are unsure of something in future, just say No and find another company to spend your money with.
Sorry if I have drawn the wrong conclusions about you here, but you are posting a complaint to Shell on the comments section of a niche news website that has no affiliation to them.
@Jane hesketh: I find your post to be confusing because Shell Energy does supply a Technicolor router and it’s a DIY installation once Openreach has installed your phone line and it’s activated.
K says: what about the lack of space between sentences too?
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Ref Shell, I used to shell out money for their shoddy service. While yes they ‘allow’ in quotes customers to use their own device they get a reduced speed service for example, their phone connection does not support caller display but they won’t say this upfront
I hope Vodafone get the hint, the current Wifi 5 router isn’t fit for purpose on the higher packages and you shouldn’t beed to get a Pro 2 package to be able to use your service. I have ‘Pro’ and the router just can’t cope at all.
Had Shell energy broadband since it took over from Post Office, never had a problem,it just works!
I wouldn’t bother – signed up for new 24m contract, got sent their standard router, despite agreeing the new WiFi6 router with Jo in the retention team at point of order. When called to complain was advised that they aren’t able to send out WiFi6 router at the moment – due to “technical issues, possibly related to supply”. I was then told that their premium regular router that I’d been sent was better anyway!
The broadband works okay but being enticed by an offer of hardware that then doesn’t arrive still feels like a con.
Avatar photo Andrew G says:
August 23, 2023 at 7:56 am
No one wants to buy them because the business certainly won’t be able to keep the Shell brand (for what its worth) for very long,
Why wouldnt the new company be able to use the Shell brand MANY companies use other companies brands if in any deal it is agreed that the new company can use the shell brand (if the new company want to do that) they will be able to Brand licensing is a huge business most of Virgin branded companies are not owned by virgin group the most well know is probably virgin media, It is thought with the O2 merger VM might rebrand to O2. you cannot assume the new owner would not be able to use the shell brand.
I’m on the 900mbps FF package. I’m not very technical but have been clocking speeds of 299mbps via Ethernet cable. I rang Shell who said the WiFi 6 router isn’t capable of handling the faster 900+mbps and that I’ll need to purchase a router that will! Does this sound correct to anyone? I feel a bit shafted taking out the top package that they can’t even support?!