With Fibre speeds increasing and WiFi 7 becoming available on more devices the router is often the bottleneck for home and small business internet setups.

We tested D-Link’s DPN-BE7212GR BE7200 10G Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router to see what future proofing your setup with a latest spec router can achieve. Importantly the router not only offers WiFi 7, but also has a 10G WAN port to connect to your fibre connection and four 10G LAN ports.

Test setup – we currently run a WiFi 6 D-Link router connected to a Fibre Pro connection (Nominal 922 Mbps download/518 Mbps upload). With only 1GB WAN and LAN ports the existing router is topping out. We have one WiFi 7 device (iPhone 17) so were able to test the gains with an uprated router.

Setup is easy with a QR code on the instruction pamphlet that lets you download the D-Link WiFi app which then steps you through quick setup.

Wired connection to PC – we saw a small increase in actual speeds (941/549 vs 926/544 with our existing setup), our PC also has a 10GB LAN port. On WiFi with WiFi 6 devices the results were similar. Switching to the WiFi 7 device we saw some good speed gains with example speeds of 895/550 vs 850/544.

I would note here that our existing router is a top end gaming unit that gives exceptional performance, the benefits over a more common or garden unit would be even higher.

If you need to upgrade your router, are getting more WiFi 7 devices or are looking at Ultra Fibre connections with greater than 1GB throughput this is a great option with the ability to add mesh units if needed.

DPN-BE7212GR key features

• Dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports (1x 10G WAN + 1x 10G LAN) - ready for NBN 2 Gbps, NZ UFB Hyperfibre and 10G home networks

• Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) - combined wireless speeds up to 7200 Mbps with 4x4 MU-MIMO

• Enhanced WPA3 encryption - protects the household network

• Scales via EasyMesh - pair units for whole-home Wi-Fi 7, with optional wired 10G backhaul for a full 10G backbone

• 4K QAM and OFDMA - greater capacity and efficiency for crowded networks

• Multi-Link Operation - smoother gaming and streaming across the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands

• D-Link Wi-Fi Assist app (iOS and Android) - simple setup and day-to-day management

• Smart VPN - secure remote access without per-device VPN software