EE UK Bring WiFi 7 to All Broadband Plans, Launch New Router and Trial 8.5Gbps
Mobile operator and broadband ISP EE (BT) has today announced a major refresh of their UK full fibre (FTTP) packages, which makes WiFi 7 “standard across all of its … plans” – supported by the launch of their new slimmed down Smart Hub 7 Plus router and WiFi Extender 7 Plus mesh kit. The provider has also confirmed plans to trial download speeds of up to 8.5Gbps.
The new Smart Hub 7 Plus router adopts similar but slimmer styling to the Smart Hub Pro, which launched just over a year ago for EE’s top 1.6Gbps package (here) – both support the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard. But the new router isn’t quite as capable as the Smart Hub Pro (e.g. dual band vs tri-band WiFi) and is largely intended to replace the WiFi 6 capable Smart Hub Plus that currently ships alongside EE’s 900Mbps and slower FTTP plans.
The change means that EE has become the “first major provider in the UK” to offer cutting-edge WiFi 7 (wireless network) connectivity as standard across all of its Full Fibre plans (although some smaller ISPs have already done this).
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Clarifying the New Hardware Selection
➤ For plans up to 1Gbps: Customers receive the Smart Hub 7 Plus (dual band, capable of up to 1Gbps) and the optional Wi-Fi Extender 7 Plus. The Smart Hub 7 Plus offers customers up to 30% faster Wi-Fi throughput compared to the previous Smart Hub 6 Plus, supporting more devices and reduced latency for streaming and gaming.
➤ For 1.6Gbps plans: Customers receive the upgraded Smart Hub 7 Pro (tri-band technology, supporting consistent speeds over 1Gbps) and the Wi-Fi Extender 7 Pro, ensuring optimal performance across the home.
Headline Features
- Wi-Fi Intelligence: WiFi Intelligence uses real-time network insight to give customers the best possible WiFi coverage and connection quality throughout their home. It works in the background, making automatic improvements like ensuring they’re on the best smart hub or extender channel frequency – without them having to do anything
- EE Wi-Fi Controls: A set of features within the My EE app that allow customers to manage their home network’s internet access for parental controls and device management
- Wi-Fi Optimiser (Included in certain plans): Enhances performance based on how the connection is being used (e.g., gaming, working from home, TV streaming), helping to eliminate lag and buffering during critical moments
- Advanced Web Protect: Built-in AI capability that automatically blocks untrustworthy and malicious websites on the network
- Keep Connected Promise (Included in certain plans): If a fault is reported, EE will send a 4G Mini Hub to reconnect the customer to EE’s mobile network, minimising downtime
- Cyber Security powered by Norton (Included in certain plans): Gives an advanced level of in and out-of-home protection through social media monitoring, dark web monitoring, and password management for up to 15 devices
From today, customers taking out one of EE’s refreshed Full Fibre home broadband packages will now be given the choice of a range of download speeds ranging from £28.99 per month on 74Mbps and up to £39.99 on 900Mbps on a 24-month contract length. Customers can then have the option to choose from the following extra features at extra cost.
Standard Plans
Includes all of the ‘Core’ features, but also adds the Keep Connected Promise, Norton Cyber Security and Wi-Fi Optimiser. All of this costs an extra £4 per month.
Premium Plans
Everything from Core and Standard, but adds the Wi-Fi Extender 7 Plus. All of this costs an extra £11 per month.
Ultimate Plans
Everything from Core, Standard and Premium, but adds the top end Smart Hub 7 Pro router, Wi-Fi Extender 7 Pro and the EE Guides Home Visit: “Access to free home visits from broadband specialists to ensure you’re perfectly set up plus an annual health check for an optimised connection”. All of this costs an extra £20 per month.
Take note that EE’s top 1.6Gbps speed full fibre broadband plans are available with either a Premium package (£66.99), which comes with both the Smart Hub 7 Pro and WiFi Extender 7 Pro, or Ultimate package (£75.99). However, customers who don’t want to take a specific package can always add features individually, although this often costs more (all add-ons are 30-day rolling [unless specified] to give customers greater flexibility).
➤ Cyber Security – £6pm
➤ WiFi Optimiser – £5pm
➤ WiFi Extender 7 Plus – £10pm
➤ Smart Hub 7 Pro and WiFi Extender 7 Pro bundle – £15pm (24m contract)
➤ Connectivity Backup – £10pm
Finally, customers who take out EE home broadband can also get exclusive mobile benefits with EE One (i.e. bundling broadband and mobile), including savings on the mobile plan rental (worth up to £480 over two years) and a data boost on existing eligible mobile.
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Luciano Oliveira, Director of Product, Home and TV at EE, said:
“EE is the first major provider in the UK to offer WiFi 7 smart hub technology as standard across all Full Fibre plans. By pairing best-in-class hardware with advanced features like WiFi Intelligence and AI-enabled security, our customers get the most reliable, high-performance connection in every room of their home – whether streaming, working, gaming, or staying connected with family – and that’s why more people are choosing EE.”
Separately, EE has also become the first ISP on Openreach’s national network to officially confirm that they will be taking part in the operator’s full fibre trials (here and here), which will test download and symmetric broadband speeds of up to 8.5Gbps over the new XGS-PON network.
The trial is due to get underway during March 2026 and Openreach has already confirmed that it will initially start with about 40,000 premises in Guildford, although this may well be extended. EE’s own retail prices and availability for the pilot will be released “nearer” the launch. “The pilot will help shape future Full Fibre broadband services for customers with options evaluated for wider deployment across the UK,” said a spokesperson for EE.
In terms of the new router and extender specifications, we’ve managed to pry a few of those from EE’s hands. You can see them below the following image, which shows the backside view of both devices.
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SMART HUB 7 PLUS Specification
WiFi Spec
Wi-Fi 7
802.11be
2.4Ghz 2×2
5Ghz 4×4Processor
Broadcom BCM6766
Quad-Core 2GhzMemory
Flash 8GB
RAM 2GBWired Connections
1x 2.5Gbps WAN (Ethernet)
1x 2.5Gbps LAN (Ethernet)
3x 1Gbps LAN (Ethernet)Broadband Technology
FTTP Only
WiFi Extender (Mesh) Support
Yes (WiFi Extender 7 Plus)
Digital Voice Support
Yes (DECT/FXS)
Connectivity Backup Support
Yes
EE TV Support
Yes
EE App Support
Yes (setup and operation)
On/Off/Dim Light Control
Yes
Integrated Password Card
Yes
Casing
95% PCR
Dimensions
H:252mm W:33mm D:165mm
As for the new WiFi Extender…
WIFI EXTENDER 7 PLUS Specification
Wi-Fi Spec
Wi-Fi 7
802.11be
2.4Ghz 2×2
5Ghz 4×4Processor
Broadcom BCM6766
Quad-Core 2GHzMemory
Flash 8GB
RAM 1GBWired Connections
1x 2.5Gbps LAN (Ethernet)
Compatibility
Smart Hub 7 Plus
EE TV Support
Yes
EE App Support
Yes (setup and operation)
On/Off/Dim Light Control
Yes
Casing
95% PCR
Dimensions
H:155mm W:28mm D:155mm
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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“that’s why more people are choosing EE” – BT customers are being pushed to join EE, at every opportunity, many customers have already found this to be the case.
The plan is to shut down BT and Plusnet nad have everyone on EE – been that way since 2021
They are supposed now to be keeping Plusnet as their budget brand. If they shut down Plusnet the chances are they’ll lose customers to budget ISPs outside of BT Group.
Plusnet is not that much cheaper than say Vodafone or even BT/EE own services, but they are slightly lower prices and that will keep people with them.
I would had no doubt stayed with them if they did not want to stick me into a 24 moth contract and stick the price up by a tenner.
As for Wi-Fi 7, i doubt very much if many people will get the use of it. I have just ordered a new mobile, and it is 6E max, it was not expensive, but it was over £200 before the offer. Doing a quick search, the phones I see with Wi-Fi 7 is in the £800 or more bracket.
I can’t see a whole lot of point of 8.5Gb internet right now. Without using a PC open WRT with at least 2 SFP+ or 10GB Ethernet ports , or a Unifi Gateway Fibre ( which is on offer at the moment) , I can’t see much Consumer grade hardware handling it or getting close. Most devices Max out at 1Gb anyway.
It’s hard enough to max out 2.3Gb with Trooli right now.
This all Looks like a push to be able to claim the fastest broadband which some Altnet will likely beat them to the punch anyway.
The CPUs used in ISP grade kit do this sort of work in hardware, which is why they can achieve performance levels that an inefficient PC running inefficient software can’t get close to. A similar approach is taken at the ISP/datacentre end of the market too. PPPoE is also not an issue for this kind of equipment.
It won’t stop people claiming that their hideously expensive and overrated Ubiquiti products or PC running OpenWRT/pfsense can do a better job, though.
I have a 10Gbps capable router with SFP+ and RH45 connections and a 10Gbps capable computer with the same. I’m on 2Gbps.
RJ45 even
Is this the best you can get from a UK leading ISP! In France standard priced plans on Orange reach 10gbps and stock Livebox router has a 10gbpe port so you can access this speed, symmetrically.
I see little point as well, but some people will still go for it as they need the fastest and then wonder why their computer is not downloading at that speed.
Fine if you have a load of people in the building, I suppose.
As ee customer how can I take part in the trial
only if its in the area you live in so far only confirmed for Guildford it seems but may well expand.
Presumably they have another router with a 10Gb WAN & LAN ports in the pipeline then for the 8.5Gb trials then.
very likely and will almost certainy be unbranded I’d imagine.
Until they resolve the issue between moving from BT to EE 1.6 which has been going for since launch , they are leaving a portion of people who want the product , want to pay for it and are left in limbo.
Sign up as a new customer
Convenient that this news about new wifi 7 routers comes less than 48 hours after Black Friday promotions finish! I can imagine there are immediately miffed customers that just joined that just missed out on new kit.
Typo is the processor broadcom instead of:
Processor
roadcom BCM6766
Quad-Core 2GHz
I’ve just ordered some new UniFi Wi-Fi APs, to upgrade me from 6 to 7. Pretty good value, given that I already have the controller and POE switch. The ‘decentralised’ approach to network upgrades. The EE kit looks good, but I really hope to see 2.5GbE becoming standard on all ports in the near future. Gigabit has been around forever and it’s time for a step up, given that most modern PCs (even my 2022 desktop) have 2.5G ports now.
Their old original wifi7 router has four 2.5gbe ports on it.
I do agree that it is about time 2.5Gb ports become standard, well on some things. Computers and NAS and network switches, but a waste of time on a TV, but then I suppose how much it costs to stick one in, as it would require the electronics as well.
USB-C power won’t work nicely with their existing battery backup solutions…
Given the 1800/120 package is very expensive (by comparison to altnets) on EE, I suspect their pricing will be too much for most to stomach. I don’t think this will sell well for EE, it would be better with a prosumer ISP. I hate to be one of them, but the average household does not need 8500 symmetrical in any way shape or form.
Yes, some of us want it. Will we utilize it all of the time? Absolutely not.
I’d like to think that once we start to see 10Gbps connections become a widely available option, prices will fall quite quickly. I also think at some stage, 1Gbps will be the standard level of connection speed offered.
I do agree that people don’t need it, it’s like you don’t need a 5090 Graphics card but it’s for sale and people can choose to spend their money how they like so I say why not give them choice
I think the 1800 package is expensive because they want too many customers taking it up while they are still on GPON due to congestion issues. As they upgrade to XGS-PON (and above) expect to see prices fall.
We used it anywhere near all the time the networks would melt down. Takes a lot of regular users to compensate for the long tail of very heavy users.
Hopefully these new WiFi7 routers will be backwards compatible, because the old ones certainly weren’t!
What are you on about? The WiFi Pro router has a compatible WiFi mode that allows for older devices to connect to the network.
How can they not be? Would be stupid not to be. Still plenty of Wi-Fi devices that uses older standards, even new devices, like most of the smart home products, still only use 2.4Ghz.
And im stuck with a rubbish 65meg…
theres still people on adsl at 3mb or slower . 30mb here and no full fibre
65mbs is way better than a lot of people. Have you thought about Starlink? That’s what I would be using if I couldn’t get better.
That is better than some people, should be able to do everything with that speed. I was on 36Mb/s for 9 years, done everything that was needed, streaming, gaming, not a big gamer, but played some online. I know a couple of people who are big gamers, and they have the same sort of speed and are fine.
The only thing is downloading files, it takes a bit of time, but hay it could be worse, you could be on ADSL.
Starlink is an excellent alternative.
I ran it full time and generally always had 250Mbps up to 400.
If you’d like to play the WiFi game of ‘ You’re connected ‘ ‘Now you’re not’ o ‘ Now you’re connected ‘ Now you’re not, the EE WiFi Pro extenders are for you!
Any help greatly appreciated thanking you.
You have problems with Wi-Fi? A lot of the problem is people put the router in silly places, next to other stuff that may interfere, or under a TV. unless you have an old house that have thick walls, or live in a large house you really should not have any problems. My partner’s house is pretty large and old and Wi-Fi is fine in her house, but she does have the router on a shelf in the living room, which is centralish to the house.
It seems a lot of problems are also with these routers that stick the antenna inside, instead of outside,
I’m a bt customer on the 900mb download package with a over a year left on my contract and I’m stuck with the not so super hub 2 which only has WiFi 5. Will bt ever give bt customers a modern router?
They’ll migrate you to EE, my advice, don’t!
Ring EE and they will gladly transfer you on to EE. Thats what i did and was still in contract with BT.
No that’s why EE exists newer equipment is on here
Do you need anything more than Wi-fi5?
Give it 6-12 months for the firmware updates to iron out the bugs
FTTP 500/75 will be a sweet spot on! Not bothered about the rest of fastest speed.
Pricing isn’t anywhere even close to being competitive,do these companies not know we the consumer can use the internet and find better deals?
I have GIG internet right now and pay £21 a month, I got a £150 bill credit and free netflix
Why in all that’s holy would I pay £40 a month for less ?
who are you with? I tried googling, but one of the results is literally your post here lol.
Even with the “generous” access to Openreach physical infrastructure and Openreach / BT having price controls imposed on them, most altnets are barely keeping the lights on. £21 a month is hardly sustainable even without the freebies you’ve been given.
Hey Trump’s Wig, don’t expect us to believe your post, do yah! – just as far away from reality as Trump himself!
Lots of ISPs that use CityFibre have pricing at £19-25 for 1Gig connections.
Subscriptions need to be killed. Awful. Save up and buy your own equipment instead IMHO
I’m so thoroughly fed up with ISPs who insist on lumping customers with unwanted hardware.
And unwanted yearly contracts. Just get stuffed.
You’ll only ever get my money as a last resort; when there’s absolutely no other option available to me.
Otherwise, my money goes to whoever respects my time, money, and intelligence.
And let’s face facts: ISPs shove you into yearly contracts and burden you with cheap Chinese hardware because they think you’re a gullible idiot. If you fall for it and think you’re getting a good deal by committing yourself to their marketing strategy, and filling landfills with more useless tech, then they’re probably right.
There’s a recent example on this website’s forum that proves the major ISP’s point on why they provide equipment and expect customers to use it. A gigabit service that was not achieving those speeds. Openreach come out and prove it works fine on their test unit – customers’ own router clearly at fault. That’s a router that’s probably now going into landfill.
ISP then gets saddled with a NFF charge and either has to absorb it or pass it on to the customer. This was with an ISP that does what you want, ie they don’t send hardware out to all customers, so now the customer has to buy a new one.
The major ISPs consider the hardware to be the way to differentiate their service from others since they’re all offering the same speeds now. Most customers, ie people who don’t visit this website, have no interest in spending lots of money on equipment that probably won’t work any better than this does and could very well be worse. And the issue above would not arise, because they could trigger the router to run its own speed test and prove gigabit speeds all the way into the home.
Also, none of the suppliers that BT/EE use are from China nor do they use Chinese factories anymore, and BT/EE do a lot of the software in house. There is more going on than you seem to think. One could certainly argue that the first EE WiFi 7 router was industry leading – you weren’t getting anywhere close to it in performance and capability without spending a lot of money.
I’m pretty confident despite being gullible and buying into the marketing my connection is both cheaper and more performant than yours, and I spent far less time arranging it as I wasn’t fixated on routers, monthly contracts, respect for my intelligence, time or money, etc.
Still, sorry we can’t all be as smart as you.
Steve Wright’s radio programme years ago on radio 1, used to have an amusing character slot, one of which is well suited to yourself. — Mr Angry. 🙂
All good for new customers not such great news for long term existing loyal customers. Currently have 599mb full fibre and full tv package. Called to ask about getting the new router as have plenty of devices that would benefit from wifi7. Not impressed to be told if I want new router I would need to pay another £10 a month for something new customers get included at no extra cost. Again same old story of new customers being looked after and existing ones getting the short straw.
I think Ee rely on customers just agreeing to this stuff, why would I pay 10 pounds extra for a router I don’t own and would need to return if I left and not getting any speed upgrade on my package.
Sorry just noticed typo in my post currently on 500mb full fibre
Oooo wifi 7, now where are all my wf7 client devices…
Stange there’s no power use in teh specs, mind given all the add on costs, it’ll just about work out at more then the monthely electricity bill.
Cart before horse, not to mention the practical need for the emporer’s clothes….
If they wanted to do something really useful then where are the 10G ports, and the voip/pass through not to mention vpn server+client on wireguard, mind that might be encouraging a bit of privacy against the powers that be’d desires.