KCOM Launch Amazon eero Wi-Fi 7 Routers for UK Broadband Customers
Broadband and telecoms provider KCOM, which has built their own full fibre (FTTP) network across parts of East Yorkshire (mostly Hull) and Lincolnshire in England, has this week become the latest ISP to adopt Amazon’s Wi-Fi 7 capable eero 7 (and eero 7 Pro) routers for new broadband customers of their internet access packages.
According to the announcement, both the eero 7 and eero Pro 7 deliver up to 186m² of wireless coverage per device, “meaning Wi-Fi dead spots and unconnected corners are a thing of the past“. But this is incorrect, Wi-Fi 7 is good but cannot perform miracles in every home (signal depends upon materials, layout, local Wi-Fi congestion etc.). The eero 7 can, however, connect more than 120 devices at once, while the eero Pro 7 can connect more than 200 devices at the same time.
The provider goes on to highlight the benefits of Wi-Fi 7’s Multi-Link Operation (MLO) technology, which uses multiple Wi-Fi bands simultaneously to maintain stability when networks are busy. “It is also capable of handling speeds of 5Gbps, meaning it’s future-proofed against ever faster broadband speeds and devices“, said KCOM’s update.
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However, once again we have to point out that Wi-Fi signals remain highly variable and real-world performance will usually be in the high hundreds of Megabits per second, rather than the Gigabits (unless you’re sitting near to the router with another good Wi-Fi 7 capable device). In addition, only the eero Pro 7 claims 5Gbps peak speeds and can support the 6GHz band, while the regular eero 7 maxes out at 2.5Gbps and doesn’t support 6GHz.
New customers joining KCOM on their 100Mbps, 300Mbps and 500Mbps speed full fibre packages will now receive one eero 7 as standard, while anyone taking their 900Mbps package will receive the latest eero Pro 7.
KCOM Consumer Managing Director, Neil Batholomew, said:
“This is great news for our customers looking for brilliant Wi-Fi that will continue to deliver right across their home.
KCOM already delivers the UK’s most reliable broadband* and now, as the only local provider offering Wi-Fi 7 as standard, we’re stepping up again to give customers an unbeatable and seamless online experience.
We’re delighted to be teaming up with a trusted global brand like Amazon once again to be launching their latest eero 7 devices, it’s a partnership that’s bringing the very best broadband to the KCOM region.”
Existing customers can, if they so wish, upgrade to the Wi-Fi 7 router for just £24.99. But eero routers, while reasonable bits of kit and easy for ISPs to manage, do tend to lack some features that more advanced users tend to demand (e.g. only two Ethernet ports on the back).
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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More ISPs need to give advanced users a “no router” option.
Not everyone wants more “amazon” in their house, or have a perfectly good set up.
I also get frustrated that these are always advertised that WiFi 7 fixes everything, whereas most devices still don’t support it!
ISPs want a device they can interrogate and which removes all unknowns and uncertainties in the customer’s home. So called “advanced” customers often think they know more than they do.
As far as they’re concerned they’d rather you used their kit, or at least had it handy if a fault should occur and they can ask that you plug it in.
You don’t need WiFi 7 clients to see an improvement. WiFi 6E devices can benefit too given that the router supports 6GHz. I assume the Eero extenders can do as many other meshes do and work as an ethernet bridge to a wired device such as a PC or games console.
There are ISPs that are willing to do BYOD, but you’ll probably pay more for those in the first place.
Maybe i’m just lucky Ivor, as for the past 10+ years of using my own kit on broadband connections i’ve not had “faults” that can’t be easily diagnosed.
If there is that BYOD option, and they want me to keep safe a basic cheap product, then that could be the option there.
not sure 6E could even make my network faster here tbh though, but maybe I “think they know more than they do.”
Well, the fact that you didn’t understand why WiFi 7 equipment will benefit customers who don’t have 7-capable equipment, perhaps proves my point here
I’ll add one more reason – tri-band meshes can use the 6GHz band to link together (provided they’re not too far apart). That frees up the 5GHz spectrum for all of your dual band devices and should give better performance than a dual band/dual radio mesh would have done.
As for the general point, there are a lot of examples both on this forum and elsewhere about people crying wolf on performance, only for it to turn out to be misconfigured or generally just poor quality customer-owned equipment. This morphs into other falsehoods like people griping about the use of PPPoE as if it is a problem, when again it is not in most cases.
Besides, what is the problem with an ISP offering state of the art equipment?
i genuinely cringe at the thought of an “Amazon” router
And me and i use Amazon Echo units, but the thought of all my traffic going though a Amazon router, no thanks.