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Fritz!, the eponymous German wireless router manufacturer has just announced its flagship model in Berlin at the annual IFA tech show. Although you probably won’t end up with one in your UK home next year, it’s a model I think more UK providers should be supplying.
That’s because where most broadband ISPs supply a messy modem and router combination to their customers, occupying two plug sockets and trailing messy cables all over the place, the Fritz!Box DL/Fiber 7-90 combines every connection you could possibly want in one neat box: not only does the box deliver Wi-Fi and home network connectivity, but it also has a DSL modem inside AND support for fibre optic connections as well as a whole host of other stuff.
And it’s a pretty neat box, too, complete with a fresh new redesign that sees Fritz!’s Jetson-style curvy boxes of old replaced with a clean, minimalist box shape finished in white and red, all the cables neatly tucked away out of sight under a flap at the rear and only one status light blinking away at the front.
The box can be popped on a shelf or table or wall mounted, and thoughtfully Fritz! has spaced the drill holes in exactly the same place as its other models, so users of previous routers can simply remove and upgrade without having to drill new holes.
Inside are 11 internal antennas, positioned toward the top of the box, and these provide triple-band Wi-Fi 7 connectivity over 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz with a total theoretical bandwidth of 12.2Gbits/sec. That breaks down into 5,760Mbits/sec on the 6GHz channel with 2 x 2 MIMO and 320MHz wide channels, 5,760Mbits/sec on the 5GHz channel (4 x 4 MIMO) and 688Mbits/sec on the 2.GHz channel.
As mentioned it supports both DSL connections and fibre optic connections (GPON up to 2.5Gbits/sec, AON up to 1Gbit/sec), mesh connectivity with compatible Fritz!Box devices and there’s even support for DECT and IP/SIP telephony.
The features don’t end there however. The Fritz!Box DSL/Fiber 7-90 also crams in a Zigbee radio and the less common (at least in the UK) DECT ULE for smart home device connectivity.
And there’s plenty of connectivity provided for physical connections as well with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports at the rear, one 2.5-Gigabit LAN port and another 2.5-Gigabit WAN/LAN combo port for those who still need to connect the router to an external modem box.
Overall, Fritz!’s latest router looks very tempting. It’s a Swiss Army knife when it comes to features, and the new design looks neat and pleasingly minimalist. It’s a shame UK fibre users won’t be able to make the most of the fibre optic capability – most ISPs won’t allow the use of third party user-provided fibre optic equipment – but the rest of the product looks solid and, since its a Fritz!Box, the software experience should be pretty good too.
The Fritz!Box DSL/Fiber 7-90 isn’t the only product launched at IFA, although it is the most impressive. Also launched were the Fritx!Box 6690 Pro – a cable- based, tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router; a new quad-band Wi-Fi 7 repeater with 6GHz support and 10Gbits/sec LAN, the Fritz!Repeater 6700 Pro; and the Fritz!Box 6835 5G, another Wi-Fi 7 router, but this one with support for 5G backup, including support for SIM and eSIM.
