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.

NOTE: KCOM’s full fibre network is mostly underground and currently reaches 305,000 premises across parts of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (England), some 200,000 of which are in Hull. The operator is backed by investment from Macquarie, but recently revealed a c.£530m write down in the value of their assets (here) and has been linked to a possible merger with Quickline (here).

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.

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).