Vodafone has unveiled a supercharged new Wi-Fi router, dubbed the Power Hub. The upgraded router will be mailed out to all new customers who sign up for a broadband contract with Vodafone from now on.
The Power Hub comes equipped with Wi-Fi 6 — a more recent wireless standard that unlocks faster speeds and bigger data transfers. Coupled with a full-fibre broadband connection, Wi-Fi 6 should be better equipped to juggle more devices without losing a connection.
Lastly, Wi-Fi 6 supports WPA3 encryption, making it more secure than its predecessor, Wi-Fi 5.
According to Vodafone, the advancements afforded by Wi-Fi 6 means its new Power Hub can comfortably support up to 100 devices connected to the same network. For those with dozens of smart home gadgets — from smart thermostats, video doorbells, smart speakers, connected lightbulbs, and other gadgets scattered in every room — that increased upper limit is sure to come in handy.
Vodafone, which boasts more than 1.38 million fixed broadband customers nationwide, describes its Power Hub router as being “built for Full Fibre, giving speeds of up to 910Mbps and is designed to work with the latest tech“.
For an additional £7 per month, Vodafone will include its all-new Super Wi-Fi 6 Booster node to your home broadband package. This diddy gadget adds a mesh Wi-Fi network to your home. This technology is designed to eliminate Wi-Fi blackspots from your home and garden by creating a network of nodes across your home that boost wireless signal.
As you move around, your devices will seamlessly switch between the Wi-Fi router and the Boosters dotted around your home, so you're always connected to the nearest device with the strongest signal and no single Wi-Fi node is overloaded.
Unlike standalone boosters, which require you to join a separate Wi-Fi network to take advantage of the extended Wi-Fi coverage, mesh networks manage everything in the background. You only need to join a single Wi-Fi network, and everything is handled for you.
Originally used in offices and airports, mesh systems have become increasingly popular with consumers following the launch of Amazon's Eero, Google Nest Wi-Fi, and BT Comeplete Wi-Fi.
The arrival of the Vodafone Power Hub puts the broadband supplier comfortably ahead of BT, which still only supports Wi-Fi 5 with its Smart Hub 2 router, which ships as standard with all broadband contracts. As such, customers will be restricted to WPA2 encryption. For those who have recently upgraded to a new MacBook Air or Galaxy S24 smartphone, which both come equipped with Wi-Fi 6E, this will be a frustrating omission.
BT-owned EE recently teased the launch of a new broadband router that'll leapfrog to the next-generation Wi-Fi 7 standard. The Daily Express published an exclusive first look at the incoming router earlier this year.
EE is one of the only networks to offer 1.6Gbps download speeds at the moment — with those who enjoy these full-fibre speeds likely to benefit from the improvements that come with that wireless standard.
TalkTalk, which relies on Amazon's Eero routers for its full-fibre broadband plans, also supports Wi-Fi 6 as a minimum, as do Virgin Media O2 and Sky Broadband with their most recent hardware efforts, the Virgin Media Hub 5 and Sky Max Hub, respectively. That leaves BT Broadband as somewhat of an outlier.
Discussing the improvements coming to all Vodafone broadband customers thanks to the launch of its new Power Hub router, Vodafone exclaimed in a press release: "Vodafone’s all-new Power Hub router is built for Full Fibre, giving speeds of up to 910 Mbps and is designed to work with the latest tech, making it adaptable for household connectivity demands, today and tomorrow.
"What’s more, thanks to Wi-Fi 6 technology, it can connect up to 100 smart devices and offers intelligent Wi-Fi auto-optimisation that automatically provides the fastest connectivity across all your devices.
"The Super Wi-Fi 6 Booster works seamlessly with the Power Hub to give reliable coverage around the whole home. Its mesh Wi-Fi capability adapts the connectivity to give customers wall-to-wall Wi-Fi.
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"Customers will also receive dedicated Wi-Fi Xpert support, who will help monitor and fix any issues. And in the unlikely event they don’t get reliable Wi-Fi coverage across every corner of the home, Vodafone’s Whole Home Wi-Fi Guarantee lets them leave, for free."
Vodafone full-fibre broadband packages start from £26 per month, although you'll need to factor in an extra £7 per month if you want to kit out your home with the mesh Wi-Fi system.
