Bouygues Telecom announces a very high-speed fiber Bbox with “real” wifi 7

It was a matter of time. Pioneer of Wi-Fi 6, then Wi-Fi 6E, Bouygues Telecom waited almost a year to respond to Free and its Freebox Ultra“first Wi-Fi 7 box” on the market. Bouygues Telecom took its time, but the response has character.

Bouygues Telecom has thus unveiled a Wi-Fi 7 compatible Bbox, better “the first Wi-Fi 7 certified box in France and perhaps even in the world”, which can manage up to two repeaters to increase its coverage.

The promise of high wired and wireless speed

Faced with Free, which very quickly destroyed the symmetrical very high speed card, Bouygues Telecom is not giving up. 8 Gbit/s incoming and outgoing are announced for this new box.

8 Gbit/s wired to your home, and up to 7 Gbit/s Wi-Fi for a single device, promises the service provider. Two promises, which leave downloading and streaming enthusiasts with stars in their eyes… Knowing that reality will have to be moderated. “For the moment, the most efficient mobile devices in Wi-Fi 7 are capped at 4 Gbit/s,” explains Davor Males, Wi-Fi engineer for Bouygues Telecom, to clarify that this therefore leaves room for improvement. progress for the future.

An important clarification is necessary. The new Bbox is compatible with two optical fiber technologies used by the ISP. On one side, the historic technology, G-PON, which can provide incoming speeds capped at 2.5 Gbit/s. On the other hand, XGS-PON technology, which allows the maximum speeds announced.
Where is the deployment of XGS-PON, announced in summer 2023? Benoît Torloting, general manager of Bouygues Telecom, tells us that “in large cities, more than 90% of our fiber sockets are eligible for XGS-PON. We are therefore very advanced in large cities. » And in less dense, rural areas? “We are gradually developing our network but at a fairly intense pace.”

Also note that during the deployment of XGS-PON technology, Bouygues Telecom announced symmetrical speeds of 10 Gbit/s. If it now communicates more at 8 Gbit/s, “it’s because in reality that’s what we observe,” explains Benoît Torloting.

Connections limited in number, but efficient

To achieve this, the latest Bbox must of course offer connectivity that holds up.
We will first of all welcome the fact that Bouygues has, once again, chosen to do without SFP, to make life easier for users. We plug the fiber strand into the back of the box, and that's it. “Users who currently benefit from G-PON fiber will have nothing to do when Bouygues Telecom switches them to XGS-PON. Total transparency,” explains Paramie Dehiwala Liyanage Perera, product engineer at Bouygues Telecom.
It is also she who assures us that according to a study carried out among ISP subscribers, few of them use more than three Ethernet ports at the back of their box. Which explains why we only found three.
Two are Gigabit and the last, most interesting, is a 10 Gbit port. This is not a first for Bouygues Telecom, which was the first to offer such a port on its previous boxes. This allows you to plug in a computer directly or a hub to share the incoming connection.

There is also a USB port on the back of the Bbox, which will allow you to connect a 4G key for continuity of service in the event of a fiber failure. And finally, an RJ11 port, to connect a wired telephone.
On the back of the repeater, there are two Ethernet ports, one Gigabit and one 2.5 Gbit/s.

Real certified Wi-Fi 7…

The ISP repeated it over and over again during the presentation of its box, it is “Wi-Fi 7 certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance”. Why come back to this point, because the first Wi-Fi 7 box on the French market, the Freebox Ultra, had sacrificed some central elements of the new standard, and even left us wondering. Which also makes Benoît Torloting say that “the Wi-Fi 7 of the Freebox Ultra is a fake Wi-Fi 7”. To the wise…

But it is difficult not to note that, on paper at least, before the tests, Bouygues Telecom's wireless offering is much better. Thus, the Bbox Wi-Fi 7 uses tri-band repeaters. That is to say, they are compatible with the two historical frequency bands of Wi-Fi: 2.4 and 5 GHz, but also, and above all, with that of 6 GHz, introduced with Wi-Fi 6E and, of course, at the heart of Wi-Fi 7. Where those of the Freebox Ultra are only dual-band.
However, this third band ensures better speeds and guarantees that the entire wireless offer is more robust. For example, the connection between the box and its repeaters can rely on the three bands, and on MLO technology which will optimize the connections on the fly.

Davor Males took the trouble to emphasize that this certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance was “a guarantee of compliance with the main requirements of the 802.11be standard”, another name for Wi-Fi 7. It is also the certainty that our Wi-Fi uses 4K-QAM, a new signal broadcasting technology that increases the amount of data transmitted by 20% compared to Wi-Fi 6. Likewise, the 6 GHz band can be used in the form of a 320 MHz channel. Finally, specifies the Wi-Fi engineer from Bouygues Telecom, “we ensure the use of two versions of MLO”, one of the great new features of Wi-Fi 7. “MLO is a disruptive functionality, it represents a paradigm shift , a change in the way data is transferred. », he continues. “There are now several links and not just one” to exchange data. MLO allows a compatible device to aggregate frequency bands in different ways to optimize speeds, latency or reliability of the connection.
Thus, the Bbox Wi-Fi 7 is compatible with two MLO modes, STR and EMSLR. “STR is an aggregation that ensures more throughput, but involves more latency,” while EMLSR guarantees better bandwidth for more reliability and better latency,” he comments. “It’s a solution closer to the Smart Wifi that we previously used to choose the best band.”

And Davor Males concludes: “we offer the first Wi-Fi 7 certified fiber box with MLO with the level of security required in France”. Because the Bouygues Telecom box also supports WPA3 on all frequency bands, which ensures better security for your wireless networks.

A vertical and eco-designed design…

Let's end at the beginning. The design. As with previous generations of Bbox, Bouygues Telecom has retained a vertical design, quite discreet, which nevertheless has three advantages. First of all, it reduces the footprint, and therefore the space taken up in an interior. Then, it ensures better heat dispersion. In this case, the Bbox Wi-Fi 7 does not have a fan and therefore benefits from passive cooling. A space has been created between the main card and the Wi-Fi 7 card to allow better air circulation. Finally, this vertical design allows for better arrangement of the antennas and therefore better coverage of your home. The antennas are also placed at the top of the small tower that constitutes the Bbox. They are of course shared between the different frequencies: there are four per band, and nine in total.
Note that on the repeaters, there are four antennas for the 5 and 6 GHz bands, and two for the 2.4 GHz band.
This verticality also allows Bouygues Telecom to slide a screen onto the front, which allows you to scan the connection QR Code or receive some notifications during installation, if a repeater is too close, for example.
But most of the control will be done via the Bouygues Telecom application. You will be able to see in real time which devices are connected and even, thanks to a parental control system, ensure that certain devices cannot connect to the box's Wi-Fi at certain times.

By including this box in its Cap 2030 strategic program, which includes ecological commitments, Bouygues Telecom has also ensured that the impact of its box is reduced as much as possible. Thus, it is made of 90% recycled plastic, while the metals used are as well. A box that tries to reduce its ecological footprint, therefore. Barthélémy MAILLET, product designer at Bouygues Telecom for 15 years, explained to us that the very design of the case is thought through the prism of performance and durability constraints. “A box often has a first life, then a second when the first customer changes their offer and returns their box. It is then restored to new condition and supplied to another customer. » This is why its teams ensured that the front and rear as well as the handlebars do not accommodate any electronic components. This makes it easier to change them in the event of breakage.

Price and availability

The Bbox Wi-Fi will be available from January 27 in some 500 Bouygues Telecom agencies and online. The planned subscription for the Bbox ultym WiFi 7 offer is €44.99/month for one year, then €51.99 per month. Note that B.IG customers, who also have a mobile subscription with the ISP, will not see the price of the offer increase after one year.