Broadband ISP Zen Internet UK to Launch Wi-Fi 7 Router and 2Gbps FTTP
Rochdale-base broadband ISP Zen Internet today claims to have beaten BT (EE) to become the “first major provider” to launch a WiFi 7 (802.11be) capable router for customers on their full fibre (FTTP) packages, which reflects the outcome of their partnership with Amazon. The provider also confirmed that their first “up to” 2Gbps plans will launch this autumn.
Sadly, there’s a bit of a catch in the aforementioned claim. Zen’s new “gigabit-plus” (i.e. speeds of “up to” 2Gbps) broadband package(s) will actually come with Amazon’s eero Pro 6E router as standard, while the eero Max 7 will only be offered as an “upgrade option” on all its Full Fibre Max packages “supporting fast, reliable whole-home connectivity.”
Customers can get “priority first access” to this router by pre-registering (here), which will also unlock eero secure as a free add-on (usually £3 per month) as well as entry to a “prize draw for a free upgrade” to eero Max 7, retailing at circa £600. Zen’s website further clarifies that Full Fibre Max broadband will launch sometime in September 2024.
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The announcement also claims that Zen’s new “Full Fibre Max packages … will initially be available at all full fibre-enabled postcodes“, which risks causing some confusion as Zen currently only supports three of the UK’s full fibre broadband networks – Openreach, CityFibre and Trooli.
David Barber, Zen’s Strategy Director, said:
“Anyone familiar with Zen will know we have always stayed at the forefront of technology and so we are massively excited to be the first major provider to launch WiFi 7, the UK’s fastest WiFi technology, over our multi-gigabit full fibre services.
What some may not realise is that the internet speeds advertised are at the point of entry into the home. As the WiFi signals travel around the home, varying factors can interfere, and slow things down. That is why the underlying devices that feed connectivity around the home are crucial. With speeds of up to 2Gbps and the eero Pro 6E device included as standard, our Full Fibre Max packages are set to revolutionise the home internet experience. Does everyone need these speeds? Certainly not, but they will undoubtedly appreciate and notice the difference.”
At the time of writing, Zen hasn’t yet released any other details or pricing for their future gigabit-plus packages, although we strongly suspect that it will only be selling speeds of 2Gbps via the CityFibre and Trooli side of their network agreements. By comparison, those covered by Openreach’s slower FTTP network may be offered a fallback to c.1.6Gbps.
Otherwise, the eero Max 7 features 2 x 10Gbps LAN and 2 x 2.5Gbps LAN/WAN Ethernet ports, theoretical tri-band wireless (WiFi) speeds of up to 4.3Gbps, WPA3 encryption, support for ‘Alexa’ smart speakers/AI, 4GB flash storage and the eero TrueMesh technology (add more units to improve the wireless coverage). But be aware that Amazon’s kit doesn’t have any ports for analogue phone or USB storage devices.
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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Wouldn’t bother with that Max 7, I had one and sold it. Awful device. Looks nice, good Ethernet port speeds, but it has bugs, and the majority of features, even WiFi stats are locked behind a subscription.
They’ve been testing it for a few months now and have been positive feedback, plus not sure how those features work as these will be from Eero for service providers
Well that’s disappointing. I’m moving house in the next couple of months and will be in an Openreach FTTP area and as a happy Zen FTTC customer of many years I’ve been eagerly awaiting the announcement. The choice of an Amazon router that locks features behind a paywall for an ISP that has a loyal following in the kind of customers who want those features more than the average consumer is weird, I hope the money from the “partnership” is worth it.
Guess I’ll be going with IDNet.
You don’t have to use the Eero …….
I wouldn’t touch Amazon with a 10 ft barge pole, double for subscription based networking cloud networking. worked for a company that went all in on a fantastic deal from Meraki until they ramped the prices up at renewal. Now amazon are trying to do the same in the domestic market. Would still stay with Zen however in most cases.
The only thing with the Eero 6E is that their is only 1 2.5GbE port on it for WAN
Not true, it’s 2.5Gpbs
@John
Yes but it’s only One 2.5GbE port the other is 1GbE
unless I’ve misread the article – how can you beat BT if you’re at the same stage where you’ve just announced you’re going to release it, but aren’t actually doing so until next month
£10 a month extra too.
Oh you can’t, but.. Marketing. I also don’t think it’s fair to claim to be the “first major provider” to launch something when it’s not actually part of an inclusive package (i.e. costs extra to optionally add it). You can already buy Wi-Fi 7 routers at retail, so unless it’s bundled, it’s not really a first. But again.. marketing.
Meh…. I just moved from Zen to Plusnet. Zen offered me no offer to stay with them, guess they have too many customers (or too many brown envelopes from Amazon) to care about me leaving.
I’m now a happy camper with my cheaper broadband and my RT-AX88U Pro.
I would stay well away from all this Amazon rubbish.
How does that Max7 router push 10Gb over normal ethernet then? Or am i missing something?
Yes you are missing something, look up 10GBase-T
there’s been a standard for 10gbps over copper for years, but it hasn’t seen much use in the data centre because it’s easier/cheaper to either use fibre or “direct attach” cables instead.
this officially requires cat6a for full distance but cat5e or cat6 might work assuming it’s of sufficient quality.
this is essentially why 2.5 and 5gig ethernet came out, as it’s cheaper to implement, can work over cat5e at 100m and is ideal for these consumer use cases.
One might suggest that Amazon/Zen are overdoing things if they expect a meaningful number of users to attempt to run it at 10gig…
Direct Attach cables are copper
> Direct Attach cables are copper
And they’re also not “normal ethernet” 🙂
Ethernet is normal over fibre, twisted pair (CatX), or COAX
For nearly £700 for the Eero 7??? Firstly, I don’t trust Amazon with my home network. Remember when they made Ring products connect to each other to create their own network?
For that price, I’d rather get an Ubiquiti Dream Machine and one of their Wifi 7 access points, and I can add any additional APs for a fraction of the price. And as an added bonus, I would have full control of all my gear without any stupid monthly subscription
Worsening technical support, and now they’re swapping their FRITZ!Box routers with lots of features for eero devices with fewer features (and a significant number of features locked behind a paywall). I guess this is Zen’s direction of travel now.
No Ben, it’s not worsening, they are still clearly the best overall. Yes a couple of others do have better support, but with Zen, the overall proposition is incredibly strong, its a proud British brand which 99% of its customers love. Go and talk to the customer of other ISP’s, there is no love at all. A generation has grown up with the internet now and the support needs of people have changed. Lazy people will be calling up saying “fix my wifi”, well, how about you look at fixing it yourself, move your router from behind your fish tank/TV/under the stairs. LAN environment and devices are not the ISP’s responsibility.
Who actually keeps the router sent from their ISP? The first thing I do is ditch it for my own kit configured as I want it.
Is this the end of Zen’s business arrangement with AVM (Fritz!Box)?
No, Eero is only an option on the fastest new product.
The amazon eeros are terrible it always put all my devices on to the 2.4ghz frequency anyway. More than happy with my Asus routers can download vpns on be that and why speed might be lower would rather have the better features. I do wonder if all isps will eventually move over to eeros.
It would be a fair assumption to make that ISPs have to pay for these devices, and they seem to be getting more expensive as they gain features. It would be good if a self-declared enthusiast ISP such as Zen, one which likes to tout its environmental credentials, would offer a no-router option and apply an appropriate discount.
Some people no doubt pick their ISP for the supplied hardware, I don’t, and would prefer to not have to store a router for the duration of my contract and prepare it to be returned in exchange for a £3-4 a month saving.
Indeed. I signed up for the Eero 6e but I wont ever use it as I’ve always used my own router, since I’ve been online long before ISPs provided them.
It was nice to get the FritzBox though, I flashed OpenWRT on it and use it as an extra WiFi Access Point. Disappointing to see them move to Amazon junk.
I’m seriously hoping Zen will hook up with Nexfibre soon. Nexfibre are currently cabling my area and I am really loathed to sign up with VM having been a very happy Zen customer for 20+ years
Not overly fussed about their WiFi offering here since I’m happy with the Orbi 6E mesh I have… full 2gb will be with my hard wired devices….
Openreach have promised to enable FTTP to almost all homes by 2026
I would upgrade (maybe not to this package, but another full fibre one), but I’m in a fixed price for life with Zen and really don’t want to give that up.
If they offered a fixed price for life again, I’d upgrade my 80/20 FTTC straight away…
Hmm an Amazon or a Google network device in my network, not to mention any device that phones home, that’s not my home, or wants/needs an ‘app’ to do anything with it won’t be intoduced here. My home is my castle and I do require privacy in my home thank you.
I will be upgrading immediately to the 2Gbps+ service when it’s available. However, I wouldn’t touch those Amazon routers. They can keep that.
I’ve also noticed that Zen are a bit pricey now. Compared to my previous ISP Vodafone, same 900Mbps service on Cityfibre, £40/month with Zen, is £30/month with Vodafone now. Admittedly, the tech support with Zen is worlds apart from Vodafone, at least in my experience so far. But is it £120/year worth it? I don’t know.
So I pre registered for the faster speeds upgrade, checked the openreach speed checker and it said I could get the new 1.8gb speed. However Zen got back to me to say that my local exchange can only give a max speed of 1gb? I can’t understand why, when upgrading an exchange to full fibre, why they can’t make it future proof.
This could possibly be down to an issue on Zen’s side, as they may have unbundled the exchange and thus have their own capacity solution, which in that area may not yet be able to cope.
Funnily enough Mark, Zen said it was down to openrech/ bt wholesale. Zen said that they checked and the max speed for my exchange was 1gb. I got this from the IDnet checker, although I’ve no idea what it means.
[0]
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Object
[location]
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Object
[floor] => [room] => [position]
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[serialNumber] => ALCLF98DBEF2 [reference] => ONT0041829953 [ports] => Array
[0]
=>
stdClass
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[number] => 1 [status] => Working [type] => Data [maxSpeed] => 1000